What do today’s buyers want in a home?

NEW YORK – Aug. 5, 2015 – What building materials are trending in new-home construction? The latest Annual Builder Practices Survey, conducted by Home Innovation, reveals what buyers can expect to see in the new-home market.

1. Garages: The garage door is getting more enhancements, including windows, insulated doors, and doors made of composite or plastic materials. In 2014, 32 percent of all new single-family homes had bays for three or more cars – the most ever recorded in this study’s history.

2. Flooring: Carpeting continues to be the most popular flooring option for new construction, included in about 83 percent of all new-home bedroom installations. However, only about 40 percent of living rooms now have carpet. Hardwood flooring – both solid and engineered– is the second most popular type of flooring included in 27 percent of all new-home installations. Ceramic tile (which appears in 72 percent of all bathroom floor installation) follows in third place, making up 20 percent of all new-home floor installations.

3. Countertops: For kitchen countertops, granite continues to reign in two out of three homes (64 percent of new-home installations). Quartz/engineered stone is gaining popularity while laminate, solid surfacing and ceramic tile are losing appeal.

4. Appliances: Cooktops and wall oven combinations are gaining in popularity and make up about 24 percent of the market, compared to freestanding ovens (45 percent). Freezer-on-bottom refrigerators are gaining in popularity at 19 percent, while side-by-side has fallen to 28 percent of the share.

5. Kitchen sinks: More buyers are paying attention to their kitchen sink, with the single basin kitchen sink making a comeback, growing from 5 percent to 20 percent of all new single-family homes in the past decade. Also growing in popularity are granite/stone kitchen sinks (at 8 percent). One-piece cultured marble lavatories are continuing to decline in demand.

Source: “Material World: The Hottest Trends From the 2015 Builder Practices Survey,” BUILDER Online (July 29, 2015)

© Copyright 2015 INFORMATION, INC. Bethesda, MD (301) 215-4688

4 Florida cities tops for seriously underwater homes

IRVINE, Calif. — July 30, 2015 — RealtyTrac released its second quarter (Q2) 2015 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, which listed four Florida cities at the top of the list for homes seriously underwater – properties where the homeowners owe at least 25 percent more than the home’s current market worth.

Areas (population greater than 500,000) with the highest percentage of seriously underwater properties included Florida markets such as Lakeland (28.5 percent), Cleveland, Ohio (28.2 percent), Las Vegas (27.9 percent), Akron, Ohio (27.3 percent), Orlando (26.1 percent), Tampa (24.8 percent), Chicago (24.8 percent), Palm Bay(24.4 percent) and Toledo, Ohio (24.3 percent).

In addition, RealtyTrac looked at underwater homes that are also in the foreclosure process.

In the same Florida cities, over half of the homeowners going through foreclosure were seriously underwater:Lakeland (54.8 percent of foreclosures seriously underwater), Tampa (51.7 percent), Palm Bay (51.5 percent) and Orlando (51.2 percent).

Statewide, 23.6 percent Florida of homeowners with a mortgage were seriously underwater in the Q2 2015 – a drop from 23.8 percent in the first quarter and 30.3 percent year-to-year.

On the flipside, RealtyTrac found that 17.6 percent of Florida owners with a mortgage were “equity rich” with at least 50 percent equity. That’s a slight drop for the first quarter’s 17.8 percent but an increase from 15.9 percent year-to-year.

Looking only at homes in foreclosure, 62.8 percent in Florida were seriously underwater, while 18.6 percent, even though going through foreclosure, were equity rich.

“Strong South Florida price increases over the past few years have moved many homeowners from negative to positive equity. We would encourage the remaining distressed homeowners to ask for a Broker Price Opinion (BPO) regarding the value of their property – many may be surprised at their improving value,” says Mike Pappas, CEO and president of Keyes Company in South Florida.

National numbers

Nationwide, 13.3 percent of all properties with a mortgage were seriously underwater in Q2, an increase from 13.2 percent of all homes in the first quarter. However, they dropped from 17.2 percent year-to-year. At the peak of the foreclosure crisis in 2012, the percentage was 28.6 percent.

“Slowing home price appreciation in 2015 has resulted in the share of seriously underwater properties plateauing at about 13 percent of all properties with a mortgage,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

“However, the share of homeowners with the double-whammy of seriously underwater properties also in foreclosure is continuing to decrease and is now at the lowest level we’ve seen since we began tracking that metric in the first quarter of 2012,” he adds.

© 2015 Florida Realtors®

Call center may bring 300 jobs to downtown Ocala

By Susan Latham Carr
Staff writer

Published: Monday, July 9, 2012 at 7:40 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, July 9, 2012 at 7:40 p.m.

 

If the Ocala City Council gives the go-ahead Tuesday to begin negotiations, and if the city staff can provide needed parking, Ansafone Contact Centers LLC could bring 300 new full-time jobs with annual wages ranging from $21,800 to $45,000 to Ocala’s downtown within three years.

The company, owned by Randy Harmat, would occupy the building at 101 NE Second St., the former offices of Maslow Insurance, which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the former Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. The facility will be used as a call center that offers in-bound and outbound customer services.

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“The city will provide a parking solution,” said Melanie Gaboardi, the city’s senior manager for economic development. “They have 30 on-site spaces. They are looking for an additional 70 permanent spaces.”

In addition to the those 100 spaces, the company also would like to have another 140 spaces available within three blocks of its facility.

The 30 on-site spaces are not sufficient for the building’s capacity.

Marc Mondell, the city’s executive director of municipal development, said the solution for the parking is still being hammered out and, if council gives approval tonight to begin negotiations, the solution will be presented to council July 17. He said refiguring the Concord parking lot north of the Concord Building on Silver Springs Boulevard might be a portion of the solution.

“We want as much flexibility as to how we can achieve that as possible,” Mondell said.

The estimated cost of providing the requested parking is $550,000, which would come from the city’s Economic Incentive Program. Without the city’s commitment, Ansafone will not buy the building or bring the jobs to Ocala.

What you should not do when listing your home….

Study: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan lead Florida in complaints

Brian BandellSenior Reporter – South Florida Business Journal

Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank   and JPMorgan Chase Bank    are the institutions Florida consumers complained about to regulators the most in 2011, according to a study by Miami-based bank analyst and economist Kenneth H. Thomas.

Working through his company K.H. Thomas Associates, Thomas obtained records of complaints filed against financial institutions to the Florida Office of Financial Regulation’s    Division of Financial Institutions, the state’s chief bank regulatory agency.

Florida consumers lodged 1,231 complaints against banks in 2011, down from 1,379 in 2010. However, that’s still significantly higher than the 992 complaints from 2008 – when the financial meltdown was just starting to take hold.

The trend in hard-hit South Florida wasn’t so positive. Complaints from Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties increased to 180 in 2011 from 149 the year before. Thomas said it’s because the housing problems are worse in South Florida.

“Even though the economy has improved in the state, we are still the epicenter for the housing crisis,” he said. “People stilling trying to do workouts and modifications, and they aren’t getting the help they are looking for from these banks.”

Filing a complaint against a bank is a serious matter, Thomas noted, as it involves filling out a five-page form and attesting that the information is true. He recommends that people try to work out issues with their bank before contacting the OFR.

“To get to that point, you have to be really upset,” he said.

The OFR complaint page is here.

The most common complaint in 2011 was account balance disclosures, at 28 percent of all filings, according to Thomas. That includes disputes about overdraft fees – the subject of many lawsuits against banks – and other automatic fees.

The second most frequent complaint was mortgage problems, at 23 percent. Other common issues were general loan complaints and credit card disputes.

Thomas’ records show that most complaints the OFR received in 2011 were referred to federal regulators to follow up on. Only 7 percent of complaints were found to have no violation, and 4 percent were resolved by the OFR.

On the bright side, Thomas noted several banks didn’t receive any complaints. That includes Miami-based City National Bank    of Florida and Northern Trust    .

City National Bank President and CEO Jorge Gonzalez said his institution excels in customer service because it has a 65-year history in the state and it makes sure its bankers don’t have too many clients to service.

“If a banker has 20 relationships, they can probability deliver a high level of service to everybody, but if they have 100 relationships, they can probably only deliver a high level of service to a few of them,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a slightly more expensive model, but you need that for best-in-class service.”

Last year, City National hired Steven Clark as its service director. Clark has experience with customer service in both banking and hotels, such as the Ritz-Carlton. He said his goal is to create a concierge-level customer experience.

Gonzalez said it’s worth it to spend on customer service because that reduces client turnover, which is expensive. He said it’s important to treat all customers the same – no matter how much money they have. Some institutions offer higher levels of service to wealthy clients.

Many banks, especially those struggling with losses, have cut back on staffing levels in recent years. That includes top complaint-getter Bank of America    (NYSE: BAC). Officials with BofA didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Space Coast Credit Union had the most complaints of Florida-based institutions and was in fifth overall. Thomas noted that SCCU had a 0.6 percent deposit market share in Florida in 2011, but attracted 6.5 percent of all complaints.

SCCU spokeswoman Meredith Gibson said the credit union changed its Member Rewards relationship pricing program in 2011 for all 370,000 members, and that resulted in some people moving to different types of checking accounts. She said former members of Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union    , which SCCU merged with in 2009 to enter South Florida, have complained at a higher rate than historical SCCU members.

“They experienced many charges as a result of the merger, and they continue to be unhappy with SCCU’s practices in some areas,” she said. “A particular market condition that caused complaints in 2011 is dissatisfaction with the disposition of requests for mortgage loan modifications. While SCCU has been actively working with members who are experiencing hardships, there are cases where we cannot provide a solution that is satisfactory to the borrower.”

Gibson said SCCU has an internal system for tracking and responding to customer complaints, and these entries are regularly reviewed by senior management.

“To date, the OFR has not found that SCCU is in violation of any regulation and has closed all cases,” she said.

Considering that BofA holds a 19.1 percent deposit market share in Florida, Thomas said its 13.6 percent share of all complaints isn’t that bad. Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), SunTrust (NYSE: STI), Regions Bank    (NYSE: RF) and BB&T    (NYSE: BBT) also had a lower ratio of complaints compared to their deposit market share.

However, both JPMorgan Chase Bank (NYSE: JPM) and Citibank    (NYSE: C) had a high share of the complaints compared to their place in the Florida deposit market, Thomas’ study found.

The most banks that received the most complaints in Florida in 2011 were:

• Bank of America and affiliates: 172
• Wells Fargo Bank and affiliates: 115
• JPMorgan Chase Bank and affiliates: 99
• Citibank and affiliates: 53
• Space Coast Credit Union: 48
• SunTrust Bank and affiliates; 48
• Regions Bank: 25
• BB&T: 24
• HSBC Bank and affiliates: 19
• BankAtlantic (NYSE: BBX); 18
• Capital One (NYSE: COF): 18

BRACE YOURSELF FOR TRIPWIRE IN THE HARP PROCESS

March 02, 2012 12:00PM

By Kenneth R. Harney

The most ambitious federal mortgage program to date aimed at millions of underwater homeowners is poised to take off in the coming two weeks, yet some key issues could hinder borrowers’ participation. One of them involves something most owners know nothing about: Who was your mortgage insurer on your underwater loan?

Though it was announced by the Obama administration late last year, the so-called “HARP 2.0″ — the second version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program — will only hit full stride around the middle of this month, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finish tweaking their automated underwriting systems to accept applications, and lenders and mortgage insurance companies start handling large volumes of requests.

The revisions are crucial for owners who have outstanding mortgage balances in excess of 125 percent of the current resale values of their homes. Under the second version of HARP, there is no upper limit on permissible loan-to-value ratios, or LTVs. You can owe twice or even three times the value of your home and still qualify for a refinancing at today’s low interest rates. The earlier version imposed a limit of 125 percent, which cut out millions of the hardest-hit victims of the real estate bust.

The latest HARP also comes with streamlined underwriting — no requirement for physical appraisals in many cases, speedy processing and elimination of some of the deal-breaker fees imposed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in recent years.

The objective, federal officials say, is to get it right this time around by removing the previous obstacles to widespread participation by lenders and severely underwater borrowers. Industry studies estimate that as many as 6.9 million loans could fit the broad requirements for refinancing, but that far fewer — somewhere around 2 million borrowers — are likely to qualify on all the detailed eligibility criteria.

Among the key rules:
— Only loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are eligible. Underwater borrowers who have FHA, VA or other types of mortgages are not. Both companies’ websites offer “look up” features that tell you whether they own your loan.
— Your mortgage must have been purchased or securitized by either company no later than May 31, 2009, and must have an LTV ratio in excess of 80 percent.
— You must be current on your loan with no 30-day late payments during the six months preceding application and no more than one late payment during the last 12 months.

If you think you qualify right now, you can apply to your mortgage servicer and ask how to proceed. Once the fully automated program gets going in a couple of weeks and your LTV is higher than 125 percent, you should also be able to shop around among other lenders who are large enough to run servicing operations of their own.

But be aware of a little-noticed glitch that has arisen in the program that could hamper your opportunity to refinance. Some lenders may not want to proceed with your application solely because of a detail buried in your loan documents that was always beyond your control — the name of the mortgage insurer on your current loan. If it is United Guaranty, they may set your application aside because that firm alone has not agreed to adhere fully to the streamlined procedures other insurers accepted as part of the basic deal with the White House, Fannie and Freddie to kick-start the revised refi program.

The issue is technical and complicated — United Guaranty has refused to waive its rights to force lenders to repurchase what it considers badly underwritten loans, and is requiring additional underwriting in some cases. All other private mortgage insurers have waived their rights. The net effect of United Guaranty’s policy, say lenders and federal officials, is to disrupt the intended fast and efficient processing of HARP refi applications — potentially denying lower interest rates to as many as 10 percent to 15 percent of underwater borrowers who might otherwise qualify.

Some major lenders, such as Quicken Loans, said in interviews that they will have to either set aside or reject HARP applications where the original loan carries United Guaranty insurance. United Guaranty, a subsidiary of giant insurer AIG, said in an email statement to me that it “fully supports the Obama administration’s efforts” in revising HARP, and that only a “minority” of its insured mortgages should be affected by its policy disagreement with the rest of the industry.

Bottom line for you if you’re deeply underwater and interested in a HARP refi: Proceed with your application anyway, but be aware there are tripwires and snares that could derail you.
Ken Harney is a syndicated real estate columnist.

HAMP New Guidelines

Expanding our efforts to help more homeowners and strengthen hard-hit communities | Janus International Realty.

Expanding our efforts to help more homeowners and strengthen hard-hit communities

Expanding our efforts to help more homeowners and strengthen hard-hit communities

via Expanding our efforts to help more homeowners and strengthen hard-hit communities.

Forbes most miserable cities: South Florida cities top Forbes’ most miserable cities list – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Forbes most miserable cities: South Florida cities top Forbes’ most miserable cities list – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

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