Boomerangers

Posted on June 20, 2015 by grim

From the NYT:

Mortgage Market on the Mend

New research from TransUnion, the credit information service, predicts that some 1.5 million homeowners who were forced out of the mortgage market after the housing bust will have recovered sufficiently to re-enter the market sometime between now and 2017.

But creditworthiness alone does not a buyer make. Other studies suggest that the fallout from the financial crisis is still a hindrance for many Americans, and that the national homeownership rate will continue to fall in coming years.

The TransUnion study, released on Wednesday, tracked the credit trajectory of the roughly seven million homeowners who had been “negatively impacted” by the economic downturn as of the end of 2009. That category includes homeowners who were at least 60 days delinquent on a mortgage, had lost a home to foreclosure or short sale, or had obtained a modification to a distressed loan.

Borrowers who suffer such a major credit event are usually ineligible for another loan backed by Fannie Mae, the Federal Housing Administration or other government entities until after waiting periods of two to seven years have passed.

TransUnion found that, as of the end of 2014, 1.2 million credit-weakened borrowers had recovered to a level at which they would meet Fannie Mae’s underwriting guidelines. This meant they had a minimum FICO score of 620 and no unpaid judgments or liens pending, and were beyond a required loan waiting period.

As for how many more borrowers are expected to recover in coming years, TransUnion predicts 700,000 this year, 300,000 in 2016, and a half million in 2017.
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Compared with first-time buyers, this population “presumably has a higher desire and interest in getting a mortgage because they’ve had one before,” he noted.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, Mortgages, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 63 Comments

2014 Profile of NJ Buyers and Sellers

Posted on June 19, 2015 by grim

From the Record:

Who’s buying and selling?

Who is buying?

Forty-four percent were first-time buyers in New Jersey compared to the national figure of 33 percent. Age of the first-time buyer is 33 and the typical repeat buyer is 48. Sixty-four percent of buyers were married couples.

What did they buy?

The typical home in New Jersey was built in 1974 and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Seventy-three percent of homebuyers purchased a single-family home. Forty-five percent of buyers over 50 years old bought in an adult community.
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How did they pay for it?

Eighty-five percent of buyers in New Jersey financed an average of 82 percent of their purchase price. Ninety-six percent of first-time buyers financed their home and only 76 percent of repeat buyers used financing.

Who sold their home?

The typical seller lived in their home for 10 years and sold for 97 percent of their listing price. Fifty-one percent of sellers reduced their asking price at least once. Fourteen percent of sellers had to delay or stall the selling process as the value of their home was less than their mortgage.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 119 Comments

One hundred and ninety seven percent!

Posted on June 18, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Foreclosure activity hits 19-month high on rise in REOs

Foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 126,868 U.S. properties in May 2015, up 1% from the previous month and up 16% from a year ago to a 19-month high, according to the latest report from RealtyTrac.

The U.S. foreclosure rate in May was one in every 1,041 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

The increase in May was driven primarily by a jump in bank repossessions, which at 44,892 were down 1% from the previous month but up 58% from a year ago, and a 5% year-over-year increase in scheduled foreclosure auctions.

REOs increased on a year-over-year basis for the third consecutive month, and scheduled foreclosure auctions have increased on a year-over-year basis in four of the last eight months. May REOs were 56% below the peak of 102,134 REOs in September 2013 but still nearly twice the average monthly number of 23,119 in 2005 and 2006 before the housing bubble burst in August 2006. (Also see special methodology note on REO data collection below.)

“May foreclosure numbers are a classic good news-bad news scenario, with the number of homeowners starting the foreclosure process stabilizing at pre-housing crisis levels but the number of homeowners actually losing their homes to foreclosure still well above pre-crisis levels and on the rise,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Lenders and courts are pushing through stubborn foreclosure cases that have been languishing in foreclosure limbo for years as options to prevent foreclosure are exhausted or left untapped.”

Following the national trend, 38 states and the District of Columbia posted year-over-year increases in REOs, including New Jersey (up 197%), New York (up 116%), Ohio (up 114%), Georgia (up 108%), Pennsylvania (up 106%), Florida (up 63%), Michigan (up 63%), Maryland (up 62%), and California (up 31%).

Posted in Foreclosures, New Jersey Real Estate | 105 Comments

Housing and credit data continuing to improve

Posted on June 17, 2015 by grim

From National Mortgage Professional:

New Data Finds Negative Equity and Consumer Debt Declining

The latest CoreLogic study on negative equity found 254,000 properties regained equity in the first quarter, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity at the end of the quarter to 90 percent of all mortgaged properties. On a national level, CoreLogic found borrower equity increased year over year by $694 billion in the first quarter.

The total number of mortgaged residential properties with negative equity is now placed at 5.1 million, or 10.2 percent of all mortgaged properties. This is down from 5.4 million homes, or 10.8 percent, that had negative equity in the fourth quarter of 2014 and down from 6.3 million homes, or 12.9 percent, reported in the first quarter of last year.
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Texas had the highest percentage of mortgaged residential properties in positive equity at 97.7 percent, followed by Hawaii (96.9 percent), Alaska (96.8 percent), Montana (96.8 percent) and North Dakota (96.2 percent). On the flip side, Nevada had the highest percentage of mortgaged residential properties in negative equity at 23.1 percent, followed by Florida (21.2 percent), Illinois (16.8 percent), Arizona (16.8 percent) and Rhode Island (15.7 percent). Combined, these five states accounted for 31.4 percent of U.S. negative equity.

“Many homeowners are emerging from the negative equity trap, which bodes well for a continued recovery in the housing market,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “With the economy improving and homeowners building equity, albeit slowly, the potential exists for an increase in housing stock available for sale, which would ease the current imbalance in supply and demand.”
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Separately, the latest S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices reported historical lows for four of the five national indices. The composite index posted its second consecutive historical low of 0.88 percent in May, a decrease of nine basis points, while the first mortgage default rate was down nine basis points to 0.74 percent and the second mortgage default rate down one basis point to 0.42 percent. The auto loan default rate also reported a historical low of 0.86 percent, a decrease of eight basis points. While not a historic low, the bank card default rate reported its first decrease since January 2015 with a rate of 2.98 percent with a drop of 20 basis points, its largest reported decline since October 2013.

David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, presented the data as evidence of a recovering environment for homeownership.

“These figures are another indication that housing is recovering,” he said. “Moreover, other data on financial difficulties confirm that foreclosures are declining and consumers’ capability and willingness to borrow are improving.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 141 Comments

Is 20% even possible anymore?

Posted on June 16, 2015 by grim

From Bloomberg:

Want a House? Good Luck With the Down Payment

Saving for a down payment has long been a big challenge for anyone who wants to buy a home. And it got harder after the financial crisis, as lenders insisted on down payments of 20 percent or more for conventional mortgages, which make up the bulk of the market.

That seems to be changing a bit — perhaps because so many consumers have paid down other debt and have raised their credit scores. Since 2010, the average down payment has declined to 18.4 percent from 21.4 percent, according to data from Realtytrac. (Just by way of comparison, it was about 2 percent at the peak of the housing bubble.)

For a lender, there are certain drawbacks to loans with less than 20 percent down. For one, the loans sometime don’t qualify for a government guarantee or insurance. There also is a practical reason for the 20 percent standard: Historically, when a property went into default, banks could foreclose and then sell quickly at say a 20 percent discount, and still recoup their investment. Banks also see bigger down payments as a way to ensure that borrowers have more at stake, tamping down the speculation that contributed to the housing bubble.

For many buyers, however, the down payment hurdle remains a source of frustration, making it hard for many people to benefit from mortgage rates that have been at or near record lows for several years.

Posted in Housing Recovery, Mortgages, Risky Lending | 158 Comments

Measuring the buyer/appraiser disconnect

Posted on June 15, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Homeowner, appraiser home value opinion gap widens

The difference between appraiser and homeowner perceptions continued to increase for the fourth consecutive month in May, Quicken Loans reports.

Appraiser opinions of home values were 1.15% lower than homeowner estimates, according to Quicken Loans’ national Home Price Perception Index.

This is the first time in 22 months appraisal opinions were lower than homeowner estimates by at least 1%.

“The HPPI, more than anything, is a reminder that there is no such thing as a national housing market,” said Quicken Loans Chief Economist Bob Walters. “Every city, and every neighborhood, moves in different directions based on local factors. Consumers need to remember to watch their local area closely to understand the direction their market is heading.”

Home values continued to steadily climb nationally, and in many regions of the country. The national Home Value Index (HVI) increased 0.24% in May from its April level, and rose 4.64% since the previous May.
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Quicken Loans’ exclusive look at the gap between the perceptions of appraisers and homeowners showed the difference of home value opinion continued to widen on a national level. Appraiser opinions of home values were 1.15% lower than homeowner estimates according to May’s national index.

This is a larger gap than in April, when the national index showed appraiser opinions 0.69% lower than homeowner estimates. Despite the widening perception gap at the national level, appraiser opinions remain higher in the majority of the metro areas examined.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, Housing Recovery | 112 Comments

Bayonne the hot new market?

Posted on June 14, 2015 by grim

From the Hudson Reporter:

Going up, up, up

With dozens of rental developments in Hudson County going up and many recently being completed, why does a current report say that county rents are still on the rise, and may actually hit a $3,000 average as early as next year?

Pure economics, says Mark Quartello of Palisadium Real Estate on Boulevard East in West New York.

Even though there is a lot of apartment rental stock available, many of those seeking a place to live are very specific in what their needs are, and have the income to support them.

“Historically in North Hudson, the towns of Weehawken, West New York, Union City, and North Bergen, have been more stable than other areas in terms of high rents,” Quartello said. “But nothing is like it is today.”

Rents for Hudson County towns have grown every year since 2009, and may top a $3,000 average as early as next year, said Reis Inc., a New York-based research firm, in a report in March.

That should not be a surprise, Quartello said, because Hudson and adjacent Bergen County offer great proximity to New York, multiple mass transit options, and relatively low rents compared to Manhattan.

But many of those working in New York City want luxury accommodations, and even though many of those projects are in the pipeline, there are not enough.

“Even with the additional development, you just can’t meet the demand,” Quartello said.
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A large number of those renters are transplanted Manhattanites, coming to New Jersey for a bit more bang for their buck.

“Consumers want to go to Manhattan without paying $5,000 a month for a studio,” Quartello said.
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The luxury rental market in Bayonne is one of the fastest growing ones, because as in north Hudson, rents may be high, but they’re still not at New York levels.

“Brooklyn is overpriced and their residents are being driven here,” Piechocki said. “They get so much more for their money here. Brooklyn and Jersey City are creating a new market in Bayonne.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 30 Comments

Sitting on your ass not a viable economic strategy?

Posted on June 13, 2015 by grim

From Bloomberg:

New Jersey, You Should’ve Built That Tunnel

There are lots of reasons for bondholders to love Colorado and show no respect for New Jersey. Here’s a big one: infrastructure. Colorado made a huge investment in it and is getting rewarded by investors. New Jersey didn’t and is being punished.

More than 20 years ago, Colorado residents defied business leaders, airline executives and not a few politicians (led by consultant Roger Ailes, now president of Fox News). They voted to borrow a lot of money — a total of $4.4 billion by now — to build the Denver International Airport. At twice the size of Manhattan it’s the largest airport in the U.S., and it’s been pumping up the economy ever since.

Denver International makes more money for the state than any other enterprise, pumping $26.3 billion a year into the economy while supplying 225,000 jobs. It gave Denver, the 22nd-largest U.S. city, the nation’s third-largest domestic flight network, with a record 53.4 million passengers last year and revenue of $322.8 million.
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Now look at what happened in New Jersey, the third-richest state based on median income, after it rejected a chance to improve its transportation infrastructure. In 2010, the federal government offered New Jersey $3 billion to build a rail tunnel to double commuter capacity to New York City. It would have relieved pressure on the overburdened existing tunnel, built in 1910 and damaged in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy.

Governor Chris Christie, predicting cost overruns in a rare period of disinflation and exceptionally low borrowing costs, canceled the project. The new tunnel would have created at least 200,000 jobs, and would have generated $9 billion in business revenue and $1.5 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue during nine years of construction, according to a March 2012 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Since cancellation, New Jersey’s economic performance has lagged. Adjusted for inflation, its median household income declined 12.2 percent, compared with an average drop of 3.9 percent for the U.S. New Jersey is among only 12 states with deteriorating economic health defined by jobs, mortgage delinquency, personal income, home prices, tax income and stock performance, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The same data shows Michigan and California, where infrastructure has been a priority, as leaders in job growth. By the same measures, New Jersey is No. 6 from the bottom.

There are always many reasons for weak economic performance. In New Jersey, transportation is vital. The state sends almost half a million people out of state for jobs, the most in the nation. The majority go to New York.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the state has lost the confidence of investors. While Colorado provided an 8.9 percent return since 2010, beating the national average of 4.95 percent, New Jersey’s equivalent bonds gained 1.01 percent, the worst performance after Puerto Rico and Arkansas, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch U.S. Transportation Municipal Securities Index.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics | 28 Comments

Uh Oh – Now they did it…

Posted on June 12, 2015 by grim

Famous last words, from Gothamist:

The Brooklyn Real Estate Bubble Will Never Pop

The housing crash of the late 2000s was supposed to have decimated property values across the nation. But in Brooklyn, the housing market barely broke its stride. Supply and demand is supposed to be an immutable truth, yet a well-documented boom in development has done little to stop spiraling prices. Every few weeks, a different neighborhood in New York City’s most populous borough seems to break its own record for most expensive sale. Intuitively, it feels like the borough is at a breaking point. If something goes up, must it come down?

“There’s no end in sight,” says Jesse Keenan, the research director at Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate, referring to Brooklyn’s obscene housing market.

Currently, the monthly payments on a median-priced home in Brooklyn eat up 98 percent of the borough’s median income of $46,000. The median sales price in the nation’s “most unaffordable city,” just passed $600,000 for the first time. The 70 percent of Brooklyn residents who rent aren’t faring any better—average rent in the borough rose by 77 percent between 2000 and 2012. According to a March report by StreetEasy, “the typical new renter will spend 60 percent of their income on rent in 2015,” the highest rent-to-income ratio in all of New York.

And the Times is running trend pieces about how Brooklynites are moving to Manhattan because it’s cheaper, which means the trend started at least five years ago.

In order to bring housing prices down in any significant way, Keenan told me, the city would need to massively expand its housing stock. That’s especially true of Brooklyn, whose historic neighborhoods are largely made up of townhouses and not apartment buildings.

A 2013 report Keenan co-authored estimates that 300,000 to 350,000 new units must be built to house the next generation of New Yorkers, nearly double the 200,000 affordable units that Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to build or preserve.

“I know that sounds crazy and there are significant sensitivities there, but we’re so far in the hole that it’s a long-term challenge to our labor economies,” Keenan said.
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A housing expert who works for a prominent real estate investment company who asked to remain anonymous because he was speaking so candidly, agreed that New York has a chronic supply shortage that will take decades to fix. Even if the housing market cools off, he said, “when the bottom falls out … you will only see massive rent decreases in marginal neighborhoods.”

Even if Brooklyn’s housing sales end up being a bubble, the expert says, it’s unlikely that renters will reap the benefit of it bursting, as “rents are not speculative, whereas housing prices are.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, NYC | 118 Comments

9 years of foreclosure inventory in NJ

Posted on June 11, 2015 by grim

From Black Knight Mortgage Monitor

Black Knight’s April Mortgage Monitor: 62 Percent of Seriously Delinquent Loans Have Undergone Home Retention Actions; Florida Sees Greatest Backlog Improvement

This month, Black Knight examined the most recent data on home retention actions — i.e., loan modifications and repayment plans — and found that of the approximately 952,000 borrowers who are 90 or more days past due but not yet in foreclosure, 62 percent have been through some form of home retention program. As Black Knight Data & Analytics Senior Vice President Ben Graboske explained, while overall retention actions have decreased over the past two years, they are making up a greater share of that seriously delinquent inventory.

“In analyzing the data around home retention initiatives, we found that nearly one in five seriously delinquent borrowers are currently taking part in an active trial modification or payment plan,” said Graboske. “With 62 percent of loans 90 or more days delinquent but not yet in foreclosure having been through some form of home retention action, we’re currently seeing the highest level of saturation yet, but that’s only marginally up from last year – in other words, that saturation level is beginning to flatten. Overall, home retention actions have declined 42 percent over the past two years, but at the same time have increased nine percent as a share of that seriously delinquent inventory. We’re also starting to see some redundancy in this activity – 70 percent of all new trial modifications and repayment plans have already been through one or more home retention actions previously.”
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As Graboske went on to explain further, though there has been great improvement in both seriously delinquent and active foreclosure inventories, they still remain two and three times their pre-crisis norms, respectively, with 28 percent of the remaining inventory located in just three states: Florida, New York and New Jersey.

“Of these three states, Florida has seen the most improvement, with a 37 percent decline in inventory over the last year, and a 63 percent drop over the last two years,” Graboske said. “On the other hand, low foreclosure completion rates in New York and New Jersey have contributed to lingering inventory in those states. Looking at pipeline ratios — the length of time it would take to work through the backlog at the current rate of foreclosure completions — we see New York and New Jersey with nearly 13 and nine years of inventory, respectively. Even though Florida peaked with 20 percent of the entire state being 90 or more days past due, its pipeline ratio was never longer than 10 years and is currently the lowest among all the judicial foreclosure states at just under three years. Compare that to Washington, D.C., which uses a non-judicial foreclosure process and a comparatively very small backlog inventory, yet still has a pipeline of over 43 years, primarily due to extremely low foreclosure sales volume there.”

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate, Risky Lending | 126 Comments

Clinton did it…

Posted on June 10, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ (Hat tip Moose):

They Put a Face on the ’90s Homeownership Push. Then They Lost Their Home

This month marks 20 years since President Bill Clinton unveiled his “National Homeownership Strategy,” a 100-point action plan that put as its overarching goal achieving an “all-time high level of homeownership in America within the next six years.”

That set in motion an effort by both parties in Washington to work with the private sector to loosen lending standards and make it easier for middle-class Americans with less savings or inherited wealth to purchase homes.

Jean and Jim Mikitz of Allentown, Pa., had just bought a home using a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration when the Clinton administration was rolling out its homeownership campaign. Their mortgage broker connected them with administration housing officials, which is how Ms. Mikitz ended up introducing Mr. Clinton at his June 1995 speech, a few weeks after they closed on the purchase.

The homeownership rate, then at around 64%, steadily climbed to 69% in 2004, after President George W. Bush similarly embraced a goal of increasing homeownership. Today, the homeownership rate has fallen back to below where it was 20 years ago following the bursting of the housing bubble, which led to millions of foreclosures.

Mr. and Ms. Mikitz’s story, it turns out, also ended in foreclosure. Mr. Mikitz, a 41-year-old mechanic, lost the house in 2004, according to public records. Mr. Mikitz said they stopped making payments on the home when he and his wife divorced. “It pretty much forced me into bankruptcy,” he said. His former wife couldn’t be reached for this article.
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There’s considerable evidence that the worst excesses of the housing bust stemmed less from homeownership and more from speculative purchases that drove home prices higher—as opposed to owner-occupied purchases. Home prices peaked in 2006, two years after the homeownership rate stopped rising.

Moreover, the downturn was exacerbated by the hundreds of billions of dollars that homeowners pulled out of their homes in the form of home-equity loans and cash-out refinancing, which left millions of households at risk of foreclosure even if they bought their homes well before the bubble inflated.
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The problem: Many households can’t afford to buy homes because they don’t have the income or savings to qualify for a loan, and lenders have tightened standards. At the same time, rental growth is soaring, pushing up rents, and leaving families in a spot where they can’t qualify for a loan and where they can’t afford the rent.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, Politics, Risky Lending | 104 Comments

Homeownership rate to fall even lower

Posted on June 9, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

New Housing Headwind Looms as Fewer Renters Can Afford to Own

Last decade’s housing crisis could give way to a new one in which many families lack the incomes or savings needed to buy homes, creating a surge of renters and a shortage of affordable housing.

The latest problem looks very different from the subprime mania of the early 2000s, but it shares one trait: Policy makers in Washington appear either unaware or unwilling to do much about it.

The U.S. homeownership rate is below where it stood 20 years ago when President Bill Clinton launched a national campaign to encourage Americans to buy homes. Conventional wisdom says the rate, at 63.7%, is leveling off to where it was for decades before the housing-market peak.

But this is probably wrong, according to research from the Urban Institute, which predicts homeownership will continue to slip for at least 15 years.

Demographics tell the story.

Urban Institute researchers predict that more than 3 in 4 new households this decade, and 7 of 8 in the next, will be formed by minorities. These new households—nearly half of which will be Hispanic—have lower incomes, less wealth and lower homeownership rates than the U.S. average.

The upshot is that fewer than half of new households formed this decade and the next will own homes. By contrast, almost three-quarters of new households in the 1990s became homeowners.

The downtrend would push homeownership below 62% in 2020, and it would hold the rate near 61% in 2030, below the lowest level since records began in 1965.

The declines reflect a surge of new renter households, which is boosting rents. Together with tougher mortgage-qualification rules, this will leave households stuck between homes they can’t qualify to purchase and rentals they can’t afford, says Ron Terwilliger, who spent two decades running Trammell Crow Residential, one of the nation’s largest apartment developers.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 161 Comments

Maybe it’s not so bad after all?

Posted on June 6, 2015 by grim

From the Record:

Economy gaining steam; U.S. job figures best in five months and N.J. is catching up

The better-than-expected U.S. job numbers released Friday echoed positive trends in New Jersey and boosted confidence that the economy in the state, and the nation, is on track, economists said.

U.S. employers added 280,000 jobs in May, according to Labor Department figures, the highest in five months, after a first-quarter slump many economists blamed on the harsh winter. Hourly wages, which have barely budged even as jobs grew, rose 0.3 percent from the previous month, the biggest increase since August 2014. Unemployment edged up to 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent in April, as more people entered the workforce.
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New Jersey, which has trailed the U.S. in the speed of job creation, posted its 10th straight month of job growth in April and is on pace to gain an estimated 60,000 jobs this year.

The state still is not adding jobs at the same pace as the nation as a whole, but the gap has narrowed in the past six months, according to Rutgers University economist Joseph Seneca, who called the trend “encouraging.”
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By a number of measures, New Jersey’s economy is improving, said Patrick O’Keefe, an economist with CohnReznick, a New York accounting firm with offices in Roseland. For example, unemployment claims in New Jersey have dropped to lows last seen about 15 years ago; home building is 12 percent above last year’s level; and non-residential construction is up. Tax revenue in the state also has risen, O’Keefe said.

However, “the national economy has a degree of momentum that we have yet to see at the state level,” he said. “The state just hasn’t gained the traction that we see nationally.”

New Jersey is scheduled to report its May jobs figures on June 18. In April, the state added 4,300 jobs, and the state’s jobless rate remained at 6.5 percent.
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Friday’s strong national employment numbers are likely to be good news for New Jersey, especially for the state’s $42.1 billion tourism industry, said Michael Wolf, a regional economist who follows New Jersey for Wells Fargo.

“Presumably with a stronger labor market and higher incomes, more people will say, ‘Why don’t we take a long weekend or a full week and head to the Shore?’Ÿ” Wolf said.

Over the longer term, Wolf expects “modest to moderate” economic growth for the state.

“I don’t expect New Jersey to be a leader of growth in the U.S., but I don’t think it’s slated to devolve into perpetual recession,” he said.
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ohn Fugazzie, founder of the North Jersey-based Neighbors Helping Neighbors support group for job seekers, and program coordinator of the state’s Ready to Work job training and placement grant, cautioned that the gains still haven’t eased the unemployment and underemployment problems of many New Jerseyans and Americans.

“The salary levels of the jobs being added are much lower than the jobs that are being lost,” he said.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate | 85 Comments

Newark Gentrification?

Posted on June 5, 2015 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

‘Renaissance’ or ‘gentrification’?: Panel to take on narratives surrounding Newark redevelopment

Is Newark on its way to becoming the new Brooklyn? Or will it be, as city officials are fond of saying, “Newark 3.0”?
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Entitled “Renaissance or Gentrification?: How do we discuss redevelopment in Newark?”, the event will include a panel discussion featuring a variety of voices from government, real estate and media, including Newark Deputy Mayor and Director of Economic & Housing Development Baye Adolfo-Wilson, former Washington Post reporter Dale Russakoff and local planning and development leader Francis J. Giantomasi.

The speakers will discuss how high-profile changes in the city, including the additions of luxury apartments and plans for a mixed-use development that will include a Whole Foods supermarket, are portrayed.

Those developments and other plans for downtown Newark have attracted national media attention, including a Politico article published in March that asked whether the city would be the next metropolis to be termed the “new Brooklyn.”

The meeting is part of “Engage Local”, a two-day hosted by Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media focused on the interaction between community and media. A series of workshops and presentations on the topic will be held on the second day of the event, June 16.

In a statement, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said recent changes in the way news is delivered and digested has had far-reaching implications for cities like Newark, and hoped the meeting would “assist in facilitating more effective communications with the citizens that we serve.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, New Development | 117 Comments

Down payments fall, more buying with less

Posted on June 4, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

RealtyTrac: Average down payment falls to three-year low

The average down payment for single-family homes, condos and townhomes purchased in the first quarter fell to 14.8% of the purchase price, a slight dip from 15.2% the previous quarter and 15.5% a year ago, RealtyTrac’s first quarter 2015 Home Purchase Down Payment Report said.

This is the lowest level since the first quarter of 2012.

Translated into dollars, the average down payment was $57,710 in the first quarter, up marginally from $57,618 the previous quarter and down from $57,992 the first quarter of 2014.

“Down payment trends in the first quarter indicate that first time homebuyers are finally starting to come out of the woodwork, albeit it gradually,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

“New low down payment loan programs recently introduced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the lower insurance premiums for FHA loans that took effect at the end of January are helping, given that first time homebuyers typically aren’t able to pony up large down payments,” he continued.

At the end of last year, both government-sponsored enterprises announced their individual 97% loan-to-value products, in the government’s latest attempt to expand the credit box for first-time homeowners.
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Additionally, the share of low down payment loans — defined in the report as purchase loans with a loan-to-value ratio of 97% or higher, which would mean a down payment of 3% or lower — was 27% of all purchase loans in the first quarter, up from 26% in the fourth quarter and 26% a year ago. This marks the highest share since second quarter 2013.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 138 Comments