8 Influential Home Design Trends for 2012

The National Association of Home Builders sees the year ahead through the eyes of its annual design award winners

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) annually conducts its Best in American Living Awards (BALA). These awards, open to builders and design professionals, acknowledge that good design "is not and should not be limited to high-priced and custom homes."

The NAHB uses these design awards to look for upcoming trends for new home design. This year the jurors identified eight design trends that will have an influence on new home designs in 2012 and into the future.

When speaking about these trends at the International Builders Show, held in February in Orlando, Florida, BALA jurors Heather McCune, Mark Kiner and Victor Mirontshuk all noted that new home design is significantly better now than just a few years ago. Unlike in the recent boom years, when just about anything built was sold, strong competition in the current market is forcing all builders to improve home design.

A better home with an eye to the future. Now that's what I call better living.

by National Association of Home Builders by National Association of Home Builders

Design trend no. 1: classic yet contemporary. The new houses with strong sales now are those that blend modern and traditional elements to create cleaner and simpler elevations. Interior spaces are clean, bright and simple. Gone are the heavy detailing and generous ornamentation of the recent past. Click here for full article

6 ways to get a great mortgage deal

By Ismat Sarah Mangla @Money April 30, 2012: 6:02 AM ET

Finding a great deal on an affordable house is no longer a problem but qualifying for a mortgage can be.

(MONEY Magazine) -- Finding an affordable house is no longer a problem but qualifying for a mortgage can be. Six tips to getting a mortgage and a good rate.

Put your credit on ice. The higher your credit score, the lower your rate: The best rates go to those with a 760 or more, says credit-score expert John Ulzheimer. So keep that plastic in your wallet (and don't apply for new cards or other loans) for at least three months before you go loan shopping. One large balance -- even if it's paid off at the end of the month -- can ding your score by 20 points or more.
Ask for time. Most sales contracts give you only 10 days to nab a loan or the seller can move on. Negotiate for an additional five to 10 days to give you some room to shop around.

Click here for full article

HomeGain 2012 National Home Improvement Survey Results

Posted by: Louis Cammarosano on April 23rd, 2012

HomeGain.com announced today that it has released the results of its nationwide home improvement and home staging survey. Past findings from the survey have been a guide for thousands of home sellers in preparing their homes for sale.

HomeGain recently surveyed nearly 500 real estate agents nationwide to determine the top 10 low cost*, do-it-yourself home improvements for people getting their home ready to sell.

The top five nationwide home improvements that real estate professionals recommend to home sellers, based on average cost and return on investment (ROI) to sellers, are:

Click here for full article

It's safe to sell your home again

It's safe to sell your home again

By Lisa Gibbs @Money April 19, 2012: 2:24 PM ET

By standing firm and rejecting low-ball bids, Deanna White sold her Denver-area home for close to list price - a sign the market is healing.

(Money Magazine) -- Given everything they knew about the lackluster housing market, Meghann and Cort Battles didn't expect much when they listed their four-bedroom home in Centennial, a Denver suburb, for sale in January. So they were taken aback by the onslaught of interest. Meghann, at home on maternity leave with their two sons, juggled 32 showings in the first month. "It's so exhausting trying to find somewhere to go for an hour two or three times a day," she says. The Battles even installed a special front-door handle to text them when buyers enter and exit so that they can return as soon as possible. "It's just crazy," she says.

Click here for full article

US home-buying season finally signaling a recovery

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Real Estate Writers – 1 day ago 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five years after the U.S. housing bust sent sales and prices plunging, the spring home-buying season is pointing to a long-awaited recovery. Reduced prices, record-low mortgage rates, higher rents and an improving job market appear to be emboldening many would-be buyers. Open houses are drawing crowds. A wave of foreclosures is leading investors to grab bargain-priced homes. And many people seem to have concluded that prices won't drop much further. In some areas, prices have begun to tick up. Interviews with more than two dozen potential buyers, sellers, brokers, Realtors and economists suggest that confidence is up and that sales will move slowly but steadily higher. "The biggest challenge that we've had over the past four years is fear — fear that the economy is collapsing, that property values are collapsing, that the world is coming to an end," says Mark Prather, a broker at ERA Buy America Real Estate in La Palma, Calif. "The fear factor is all but gone."

Click here for full article

Economy Sparks Remodeling: How To Ensure A Successful Project

by Phoebe Chongchua

Springtime generates a lot of home improvement activity. Many buyers are out shopping for their new home. With the purchase of their home, the desire to remodel often comes next. For others, the drastically fluctuating housing prices are causing homeowners to stay put and that’s causing them to want to remodel their existing footprint. Whether it’s a room addition or the renovation of a kitchen to upgrade amenities and make the space feel more comfortable to suit your needs, precautionary steps to get the most out of your remodeling project will create the best outcome.
Some of the most popular remodeling projects have to do with creating homes that are livable for all ages. The National Association of Home Builders says, in 2010, that 62 percent of surveyed builders were working on “aging in place” modifications.

Click here for full article

Saving For a Home

by Carla Hill

With home affordability at the highest rate seen in decades, now is prime time to make a purchase.

The key to buying in today's market is having the funds and financial stability needed. How can you go about saving to buy a home?Many renters are wanting to turn over a new leaf by investing in a starter home. Current homeowners are wanting to take advantage of low prices and buy the home of their dreams.
Financial wiz Suze Orman tells her readers and viewers all the time about the benefits of homeownership, but also the importance of being financially ready for this move. She writes, "Never buy a home or piece of real estate if you do not have at least 10% to 20% to put down. While buying a home is a great investment, if you do not have at least 10% to 20% of the purchase price to put down, then you can't afford the home and are buying before you have demonstrated the ability to save, which is a bad idea in the current market."

Click here for full article

It's Buying Time Again, Big Time

by Broderick Perkins

If you've got the income. If you've got plenty of tenure on the job. If your credit is solid. If you can otherwise past muster at the mortgage loan desk. If it's cheaper for you to buy than it is to rent.

To witYes, there are lots of "ifs," but it's one of the best times in America to buy a home. And it won't last forever.
• Distressed homes – foreclosures and short sales sold at deep discounts – accounted for 34 percent of February sales, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The bargain basement is open for business.
• Investors know a party when they see one. They snatched up 64.5 percent more homes in 2011 than in 2010 and now account for nearly one in every four homes sold, NAR reported.
• The second home market is back with a vengeance. Both investors and playhouse buyers are jumping on this bandwagon. They pushed vacation/second home sales up 7.0 percent in 2011.
• Meanwhile, owner-occupied purchases fell 15.5 percent last year.

Click here for full article

Posted at 10:06 AM ET, 04/12/2012

Mortgage rates take a dive, 15-year hits all-time low

By J.D. Harrison

Fixed mortgage rates plummeted a full tenth of percent this week, marking their third consecutive week of decline in the wake of disappointing jobs numbers, according the data released Thursday by Freddie Mac.

The 15-year fixed rate average hit a new record low this week of 3.11 percent. (LARRY DOWNING - REUTERS) The 15-year fixed-rate average dropped to a new all-time low of 3.11 percent, down from 3.21 percent last week and far lower than its mark of 4.13 percent one year ago. The previous low for the 15-year came in March when the average hit 3.13 percent. The 30-year also approached its record low of 3.87 (set in February), averaging 3.88 percent this week after hovering just below 4.00 percent the last two weeks. This time last year, the 30-year averaged 4.91 percent.

Click here for full article

Posted at 05:30 AM ET, 04/11/2012

For lower-priced homes, a seller’s market

By Lisa A. Sturtevant

Special to The Washington Post

The number of for sale signs in yards and the advertisements of weekly open houses indicate that there are homes out there for would-be buyers. But buyers in the Washington region are facing a limited supply of homes in lower price ranges, particularly in the closer-in jurisdictions. It is a sellers’ market in the lower price ranges, which will put upward pressure on prices and may lead some potential first-time homebuyers to remain renters. According to data from MRIS, there are about 27,000 homes listed for sale in the Washington metropolitan area. (The Washington metropolitan area includes the District and 21 counties and cities in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.) In recent months, inventories have been falling as sales activity has picked up. Demand has been particularly strong for lower-priced homes, and the data suggest this is where supply is becoming more limited.

Click here for full article

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 04/10/2012

Low inventory drives up Washington area house prices

By Olga Khazan

Spring home-buying season may be heating up, but the Washington region is still a seller’s market. According to a report released Tuesday morning by RealEstate Business Intelligence, there’s been an increase of buying activity, but low inventory in the D.C. area continues to drive up prices.
Traditional sales were up 43.2 percent month-over-month in March. Meanwhile, the active inventory of homes is down 26 percent from March of last year: There were only 10,503 active listings in the area last month, and townhomes were in shortest supply.
(RBI)
Washington’s home inventory has been at all-time lows for months.

Click here for full article 

States where green jobs are going gangbusters

Courtesy of the National Park Service

A park ranger speaks to visitors at St. Mary Falls in Glacier National Park, Mont. The National Park Service is one of the state's biggest employers.

By Charles B. Stockdale, 24/7 Wall St.

The green economy often is cited as a key driver of the national economic recovery. At the very least, it is creating jobs. The total number of jobs related to green products and services in 2010 was 3.13 million, according to the first-ever green jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, to put things in perspective, these jobs accounted for only 2.4 percent of the country’s total employment that year.
In many states, jobs associated with the production of green goods and services represented a slightly larger share of employment. In 11 states, green jobs accounted for 3 percent or more of total jobs. Vermont had the highest proportion of clean economy jobs at 4.4 percent. Green jobs in these states are represented in many sectors, including manufacturing and construction.

Click here for full article

Valuable real estate most people overlook

Redefining 'outdoor living'

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, March 9, 2012.

Inman News®

Outdoor deck image via Shutterstock.

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series.


Is it possible to double your home's living area without adding a single square foot?
Yes, and it's no joke. To pull it off, though, you need to change the way you think about the property right outside your home's walls. Rather than seeing it as leftover land to be prettied up with a few flower beds, consider it an integral, functioning extension of your home's interior. The ground outside every house offers tremendous potential living space -- often several times the total square footage of the house itself. Yet more often than not, this valuable real estate is drastically underutilized. Even when a property is nominally "landscaped," it's usually treated as a static showpiece filled with cutely shaped planting beds, meandering plots of grass, and other two-dimensional treatments, none of which improve its usefulness as living space.

Click here for full article

Kitchens Sell a House

by Carla Hill

It's a tool used by house flippers all across the nation. Stagers know its power. Real estate agents push its importance. What is this not-so-well-kept secret of real estate? A kitchen can sell a house.  

A kitchen is the heart of a home. This is true all across the globe. The old saying that the "stomach is the way to the heart" carries a lot of truth. Kitchens are where we spend much of our time and most of that is with our families. It's the room where we nourish our bodies and our spirits. Kitchens are integral to entertaining and in today's age of open floor plans, they're a focal piece of many family rooms. It's because of this that kitchens play such an important role in the buying and selling process. This one room is the showpiece of the house. You'll see it every day and your guests will see it during most visits. This means buyers want homes with up-to-date kitchens.  

Click here for full article

Experts Expect to See Broad Improvements, Home Prices to Rise in 2013

By: Esther Cho

03/28/2012 

The Urban Land Institute released its Real Estate Consensus Forecast Wednesday morning, and overall, the 38 real estate economists and analysts surveyed projected broad improvements for the economy.

With signs of improvement in the housing sector already emerging, participants expect to see housing starts nearly double by 2014 and project home prices will begin to rise in 2013.
The average home price, which has declined somewhere between 1.8 percent and 4.1 percent over each of the past three years, according to FHFA data, is expected to stabilize in 2012, followed by a 2 percent increase in 2013, and a 3.5 percent increase in 2014.
Single-family housing starts are expected to rise from 428,600 starts in 2011 to 500,000 in 2012, and jump to 800,000 in 2014.

Click here for full article

Housing Crisis to End in 2012 as Banks Loosen Credit Standards

By: Krista Franks Brock

01/24/2012

Capital Economics expects the housing crisis to end this year, according to a report released Tuesday. One of the reasons: loosening credit.

The analytics firm notes the average credit score required to attain a mortgage loan is 700. While this is higher than scores required prior to the crisis, it is constant with requirements one year ago.
Additionally, a Fed Senior Loan Officer Survey found credit requirements in the fourth quarter were consistent with the past three quarters.

However, other market indicators point not just to a stabilization of mortgage lending standards, but also a loosening of credit availability.
Banks are now lending amounts up to 3.5 times borrower earnings. This is up from a low during the crisis of 3.2 times borrower earnings.
Banks are also loosening loan-to-value ratios (LTV), which Capital Economics denotes “the clearest sign yet of an improvement in mortgage credit conditions.”
In contrast to a low of 74 percent reached in mid-2010, banks are now lending at 82 percent LTV.
While credit conditions may have loosened slightly, some potential homebuyers are still struggling with credit requirements. In fact, Capital Economics points out that in November 8 percent of contract cancellations were the result of a potential buyer not qualifying for a loan.
Additionally, Capital Economics says “any improvement in credit conditions won’t be significant enough to generate actual house price gains,” and potential ramifications from the euro-zone pose a threat to future credit availability.

Click here for full article

6 rules of curb appeal

How to beat out competition when selling your home

By Paul Bianchina, Friday, March 16, 2012.

Inman News®

Curb appeal image via Shutterstock.

It's that time of year again, when I take a moment to talk to all of you who are thinking of putting your home on the market this spring. If real estate's favorite old adage is "location, location, location," then it's got to be followed closely by, "You get only one chance to make a first impression."
You can't change your home's location, but you can certainly do everything within your power to make that first impression a strong one, so let's go over the basics of that all-important must-have for a successful sale: curb appeal.

Start with a step back
You've seen the outside of your house so many times that you don't really see it anymore. So now's the time to look at it with new eyes, from the perspective of a prospective buyer. And if you can't do it objectively, get a friend, a neighbor or your real estate agent to do it for you.

Click here for full article

Home seller pitfalls to avoid

Do your home's features justify your asking price?

By Dian Hymer, Monday, March 19, 2012.

Inman News®

Six years after the market peaked in 2006 and prices started to decline, many sellers are still in denial about the current market value of their homes. It's difficult for most sellers to accept the reality of today's home-sale market, whether they bought at or near the peak and will lose money selling today, or bought decades ago but are still stuck at 2006 prices. An Oakland, Calif., homeowner recently remarked that she was aware that home prices had dropped quite a bit over the last five years. But she felt that her home hadn't lost any value.
It's hard for homeowners to divorce themselves emotionally from a home they've enjoyed. But this is what sellers need to do so that they can make rational decisions about a list price that will actually result in a sale.
This decision should be based on listings that have sold in your area that could be considered somewhat comparable to your home. Some sellers go to open houses to evaluate the competition. If you're still emotionally wrapped up in your home, the exercise can be futile. You return home feeling that the other homes aren't as good as yours.

Click here for the full article

Bethesda’s Brookmont neighborhood is a ‘Kayaker’s Camelot’

By Amy Reinink,

When Chris and Elliot Weintrob met in the late 1980s, they were living in a group house in Bethesda’s Brookmont neighborhood, where Elliot, then a competitive kayaker, was training for the 1992 Olympics.
The neighborhood, little more than an extended cul-de-sac off MacArthur Boulevard, has two walking paths to the C&O Canal, and sits minutes away from a world-class whitewater slalom course, which made it a draw for dozens of young kayakers and their coaches in the 1970s and 1980s.

Click here for full article

Expectations rising for housing market's spring season

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

The spring home-selling season could be the strongest in years and may foreshadow which markets will lead a battered housing industry in an anemic recovery, economists say.

• 
  By Amy Sancetta, AP
  New homes for sale in Pepper Pike, Ohio, near Cleveland.

Enlarge

By Amy Sancetta, AP

New homes for sale in Pepper Pike, Ohio, near Cleveland.

 "This spring will be the litmus test for housing demand," says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist for Mizuho Securities USA.

The spring season typically runs March through June but may have started early this year because of unseasonably warm weather.

While last year was dismal for existing home sales, this year is looking better. Existing home sales in February were up 9% from the same time a year ago, as was the Pending Home Sale Index, which reflects signed contracts leading to sales, says the National Association of Realtors.

Click here full for article

5 things homebuyers hate

Mood of the Market

BY TARA-NICHOLLE NELSON, MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012.

Inman News®

Last month I put a post up on my real estate blog distilling a few lessons from my own experience about things sellers do that turn buyers off, and vice versa. I was a little concerned that the article might cause some backlash among buyers and sellers -- protesting that the described behaviors were less harmful than I'd suggested.

The outcome was exactly the opposite: The topic struck such a chord that nearly 100,000 people read the article, and almost 200 chimed in with their own entertaining (and somewhat worrying) anecdotes about house hunting and home selling.

Some themes emerged, which I thought were "share-worthy" for those who are desperately seeking to uplevel their homebuying or selling game. Straight from the horses' mouths, here are five things homebuyers hate; next week we'll turn to things sellers can't stand.

Warped house image via Shutterstock.

1. Images that lie

Stretching photos to make rooms appear much larger than they actually are would be banned by listing services, if buyers had anything to do with it. And if your home is pristine and staged during the photo shoot (which it should be), it should still be pristine and staged when buyers come to see it in person.

Taking a photo of just one corner of a room that is shaped strangely or stuffed full of personal items is another way to confuse and irritate buyers, who hate nothing more than to feel like they were misled and tricked into wasting their time to see a place that is nothing like the photos.

Click here for full article