Looking back on 2012, the real estate market showed significant positive changes. Real estate home listing service, Zillow, reports that housing values rose 6% last year, posting the first gain in six years, and home values increased more than $1.3 trillion to $23.7 trillion. Zillow predicts continued growth in 2013. Compare this to 2008, when homes lost more than $3.2 trillion in value, and you can see why there’s reason to be optimistic about the New Year.

Limited inventory has helped push up prices. Inventories in November of 2012 were at their lowest levels since December 2001. Meanwhile, last November, sales of new homes posted their highest gains as the median price went from $237,500 in October to $246,200 in November.

This upward trend is also due to historically low interest rates, improving employment and prices that still remain up to 30% below their 2008 peak. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, says that home sales are on a sustained uptrend. “The upward momentum means existing-home sales should rise 8-9% in 2013 and the existing-home price is projected to rise nationwide over 4% in 2013.”

Looking to buy or sell in 2013? Let’s connect in the New Year!

Q: Who were the real estate winners in 2012?

A: As the cost of home buying rises, the prizes go to:

Landlords – Two-thirds of the country’s largest rental markets are at maximum occupancy. The highest rent growth was in Northern California, where rents jumped 7.8% according to MPF Research. As home prices rise, up go rents.

Homebuyers – They had access to record-low mortgage rates and lower market prices. The biggest jump in sales was in Phoenix, Arizona where prices have soared 25% in the past year, driven largely by investors, according to CoreLogic.

Investors - Entrepreneurs used cash to buy undervalued properties. Many times they spruced them up and resold them for 20% or more than what they originally paid. Buying and selling within six months is called “flipping.” Nationwide, about 100,000 homes were flipped in the first half of 2012, up 25% from the same period of 2011 according to RealtyTrac.

If your home needs have changed, now may be the right time to sell and buy. If not, it may be the time to consider refinancing. Refinancing now represents about 80% of all mortgage applications. In the past years, refinancing represented only 20-30% of all new mortgages according to Carrington Mortgage Holdings.

Mortgage rates continue to edge down, ending at just under 3.2% for a 30 year fixed-rate loan in December. Also, the Home Affordability Refinance Program (HARP 2.0) has allowed hundreds of thousands of refinances that wouldn’t have been possible years ago.

Your home is an investment. Let’s talk about how to make the best decisions for you.

Making New Year’s resolutions for 2013? There’s an abundance of impressive mobile apps out there to help you stick to your goals in the New Year.

If you’ve resolved to get in shape, Fitocracy helps you stay motivated by combining social networking with fun, competitive gaming tools. You can share your progress with your own fitness community of friends and family, set up challenges, and track your progress. (Free for iPhone with an Android version coming.)

If overall health improvement is part of your plan, Healthtap lets you get health information right away from local licensed physicians in real time. Fooducate offers a vast online database of foods to find the food brands graded from best to worst for nutritional value, and assigns caloric “points” for dieters. (Both free for iPhone and Android.)

Getting organized tops resolution lists every year. Brewster consolidates your contacts from Facebook, Twitter and other social networking apps in one place and uses algorithms to display them by categories such as “favorites” or “trending.”(Free for iPhone.) Cozi helps you manage your family calendar, tracking everything from school schedules, meals, grocery lists and chores. (Free for iPhone, Android and other mobile devices.)

If you’re setting financial goals this year, Mint lets you see all your account balances and transactions in one place. The app automatically categorizes where you spend your money into simple pie charts, and helps you easily create and track spending budgets. (Free for iPhone and Android.)

I wish you success with all your goals and endeavors in the coming year.

Just thought that I would include a few recent pictures of my family for good measure....

As always with any questions I am and email or phone call away...

Sheldon@APR.com or 415-559-9691

Thank you,
Sheldon :)


Sloane(ie)       The Jake(age 2)