The average interest on a 30-year mortgage fell to a 38-year low of 4.85 percent during the week ending March 27 from 4.98 percent the prior week, Freddie Mac reported. The decrease came on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it plans to purchase another $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities and up to $300 million in Treasuries. President Obama says refinancing is now possible for 40 percent of mortgages and encourages home owners to reap the benefits of the record-low rates.
Today, NAR (National Association of Realtors) announced that homes sales rose an unexpected 5.1% in February. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says “first-time buyers accounted for half of all home sales last month, with activity concentrated in lower price ranges.”
This is the same trend we are seeing here in Southeastern North Carolina. We are seeing monthly over monthly inceases in activity in our market. If you are looking to buy a home, it is time to get off the fence and get in the market before you miss out on some incredible deals.
Even greater news is on the horizon with new $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit. It is amazing that someone will pay you $8,000 for simply reaching for the American Dream of owning your own home. Absolutely Amazing! I will blog more about the $8,000 tax credit later this week.
Here is a link to the entire article if you would like to read up on it more.
As always, the team here at Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty is here to serve you. We would love to be given the opportunity to work with you with any of your real estate needs.
As reported today on MSNBC, new housing jumped up unexpectedly , which is a a very good sign for the housing market.
There is a great news coming in from builders in general.
“Traffic is definitely up, and the number of contracts for houses has doubled on a per-month basis since October,” Ara Hovnanian, CEO of the home-building company Hovnanian, told investors at the company’s recent conference call for fiscal-first-quarter earnings.
This is yet another sign that the housing market is continuing to get healthy and now is a great time to buy a home. Everyone here at Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty would love to help you in all of your housing needs.
Here are some quick access links to our respective offices:
Wilmington NC Office Wilmington NC Real Estate, Wilmington NC Homes, Wilmington NC New Homes, Wilmington NC Realtor
Recently the Jacksonville office of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty participated in the Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. Agents dressed in their Sea Coast Sluggers jerseys and Sea Coast baseball caps greeted people in the team’s dugout. Lillian Wendricks, Renee Spencer and Cheri Prince, agents with Coldwell Banker Sea Coast attended along with Managers Pete Barber and Linda Snow. Also lending his support was Mike Bass of Alpha Mortgage at Sea Coast.
Please think of us when relocating to Jacksovnille NC. We are here to assist you in all of your real estate needs.
Visit us at www.SeaCoastRealty.com or call us today at (866) 928-9166 or locally at (910) 353-5100.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC today announced the launch of their customized real estate application developed for Microsoft Surface™, unveiled at the Coldwell Banker® International Business Conference being held this week in San Antonio, Texas. It’s new Microsoft Surface home search application allows users to interact with home listings, mapping and other www.coldwellbanker.com features in a way that is familiar, by using simple hand gestures. Similar to the intuitive technology featured in the futuristic film, “Minority Report,” this exploration on the use of Microsoft Surface represents yet another way in which Coldwell Banker is working to harness innovative technologies to benefit home buyers and sellers.
The first commercially available surface computing platform from Microsoft, Microsoft Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface. Its 30-inch diagonal, table-like display provides effortless access to digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects placed on the display.
Coldwell Banker leveraged the unique interface and capabilities of Microsoft Surface to develop a home search application that will provide a new interactive and intuitive way to explore real estate listings and neighborhoods. Over the course of the roll-out, the following features are scheduled to be released:
Explore. Home listings can be viewed via area maps, specific search criteria such as city, state and price, and by standard number of bedrooms and bathrooms. With a simple touch of the screen, users expand or contract the search area and locate listings, Coldwell Banker offices and area amenities including restaurants, hospitals, schools – gauging the distance between them.
Learn. Details of a particular property listing are displayed and arranged by screen touches. Images of the home are easily accessed, enlarged and moved by hand movements.
Interact. File listings by “grabbing” content with their hands from the display and “dropping” it into the appropriate folder, thus creating an itinerary that they can email to a sales associate.
Coldwell Banker unveiled its home search application by conducting demonstrations of Microsoft Surface during this week’s International Business Conference. More than 1,700 attendees were provided with specially tagged badges that, when placed on the Microsoft Surface, unveiled that individual’s profile and contact information.
Coldwell Banker plans to continue rollout of this technology at brand events and at offices across the country this year.
“As a leader in the real estate industry with a strong heritage of innovation, we recognized that the Microsoft Surface technology has some very interesting potential to change the future of the real estate search,” said Michael Fischer, senior vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “Microsoft Surface allows us to showcase listings in a very unique way that offers users a different experience with the entire real estate search process literally at their fingertips. We believe the technology can increase consumer engagement to an entirely new level.”
Last year Coldwell Banker became the first national real estate brand to put its listings on in-car GPS devices through an exclusive feed to Dash Navigation launch and launch a customized online platform for iPhoneTM and BlackBerry users.
The 2008 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers reveals that among recent home sellers surveyed in August 2008, the pure For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) sales - those cases where the seller did not know the buyer - remain historically low at 7 percent. It had been closer to 10 percent during the housing boom years.
(According to NAR)…the median selling price of an open market FSBO home was $150,100, while the median price for agent-assisted sales was $211,000.
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