Sunday, March 30, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Investors Slowing Down on Buying Spree!!!
DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014
Big institutional investors are getting away from buying single-family rental homes in bulk and are narrowing their focus to only a few markets for future purchases, CoStar Group reports.
The Blackstone Group, the largest institutional investor in the single-family rental market, announced that its acquisition pace has decreased 70 percent from its peak last year. Blackstone also said that it would be narrowing its future purchases to markets such as Seattle, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, Fla. Blackstone’s portfolio includes 43,000 homes in 14 cities.
National home-price rises the past year are the main reason for the slowdown in buying, many institutional investors say. Investors are being more choosy about where they continue to buy.
"The housing recovery has been uneven across the nation, and we are no longer able to buy in some of our Western markets, although we remain excited about many others, where we can still acquire homes at a discount to replacement cost and attractive rental yields," says David Miller, president and CEO of Silver Bay Realty Trust, the first company to convert to single-family REIT. "Florida, for example, leads the nation with the highest foreclosure inventory, which should provide a continuing supply of distressed inventory in 2014."
Silver Bay, which owns 5,642 single-family properties, says it is narrowing its future purchases to markets in Texas and Atlanta, too.
American Residential Properties Inc., which has 6,073 single-family homes in its portfolio, says it would like to add at least 1,000 homes to its portfolio from four markets: Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix.
Source: “New Year Brings New Strategies for Single-Family Rental Giants,” CoStar Group (March 19, 2014)
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Tuesday, March 18, 2014
NAR Joins Move Lawsuit Against Zillow, Samuelson...
DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2014
Realtor.com® operator Move Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Zillow and former realtor.com® president Errol Samuelson, who unexpectedly defected to Zillow on March 5. Move, who is joined in the lawsuit by the National Association of REALTORS® and other subsidiaries such as the REALTORS® Information Network Inc., allege in the complaint that Samuelson’s departure caused a breach of contract, fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets.
"At Move, we take our trade secrets and intellectual property extremely seriously as a valuable asset in our competitive position in the marketplace," Move CEO Steve Berkowitz says in a statement. "We take action in cases in which we believe our trade secrets have been compromised. We have raised this matter for the courts and believe that the matter will be resolved judiciously."
Samuelson began serving as realtor.com®’s president in 2007, among other internal roles that put him in close contact with the company’s partners and overall marketing strategy. Zillow is one of realtor.com®'s main competitors.
"Mr. Samuelson's former roles at Move gave him access to and knowledge of essentially all of Move's trade secrets across all of its business lines, whether those secrets dealt with finance, technology, data content, strategy, marketing, or another aspect of the business," the complaint says. "The secrets known to Mr. Samuelson would inevitably be useful to him and Zillow."
On Monday, Zillow announced that it had poached another realtor.com® higher-up: Curt Beardsley, whom Move had promoted to executive vice president in the wake of Samuelson's departure.
In its own statement, NAR says that despite the dust-up, realtor.com® will remain a leader in the online real estate industry.
"One of realtor.com®’s greatest assets is its strong ties to Realtors® and the real estate industry, and its competitors know that," the statement reads. "Relative newcomers to the online real estate space have underestimated the value Realtors® bring to the real estate transaction, and they are looking to realtor.com® for answers. Realtor.com® remains committed to working with and supporting Realtors® and the home buyers and sellers who rely on them to provide the most accurate, up-to-date real estate data and insights, as we continue to shape the future of online real estate."
Samuelson joined Zillow in the newly created role of chief industry development officer. In this role, he is to build relationships with real estate brokers, franchisors, MLSs, and trade associations as well as oversee Zillow’s business-to-business product solutions.
The complaint was filed Monday in the Superior Court of the State of Washington. Zillow has yet to comment publicly on the lawsuit.
—By REALTOR® Magazine
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Friday, March 7, 2014
4 Million Homes Return to Positive Equity...
4 Million Homes Return to Positive Equity
Rising home prices helped many home owners welcome the return of equity in their homes last year. In 2013, 4 million homes returned to positive equity, bringing the total to 42.7 million, CoreLogic reports in its fourth quarter 2013 Equity Report.
Of the 42.7 million residential properties that now have positive equity, 10 million – or 21.1 percent – have less than 20 percent equity, CoreLogic reports. More than 1.6 million residential properties have less than 5 percent equity.
About 6.5 million residential properties with a mortgage – or 13.3 percent – remained in negative equity territory by the end of 2013.
“The plight of the underwater borrower has improved dramatically since negative equity peaked in December 2009 when more than 12 million mortgaged home owners were underwater,” says Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Over the past four years, more than 5.5 million home owners have regained equity, reducing their risk of foreclosure and unlocking pent-up supply in the housing market.”
The bulk of home equity for properties with a mortgage is concentrated at the higher-end of the housing market, with 92 percent of homes valued at more than $200,000 having equity compared to 81 percent of homes valued at less than $200,000, CoreLogic reports.
Five states alone account for nearly 37 percent of the negative equity in the U.S. CoreLogic reports that the following five states have the highest percentage of mortgaged properties in negative equity:
- Nevada: 30.4%
- Florida: 28.1%
- Arizona: 21.5%
- Ohio: 19%
- Illinois: 18.7%
Source: CoreLogic
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