“Fifth District residential real estate agents generally reported stronger traffic and actual sales of houses priced in the low-to-middle range of their markets, citing first-time homebuyers and the government’s tax credit program as the driving force. Several agents reported strong sales in September, based on not only gross sales revenue but also unit sales. One agent expected October to be equally as busy, based on the number of visitors at his open houses. Another agent reported that sales were “up a tad,” and that the number of properties that went under contract increased in recent months. In contrast, Realtors in North Carolina reported slow housing markets, due partly to people taking their time to look and others being cautious because of their credit status. Indeed, one agent told us that, “pristine credit is practically required to get financing.” Most Realtors reported that the low- to middle-priced houses were their best sellers, and the higher-end properties showed very slow sales in many areas.”

Something strange happened, and if you were born before the mid-1980s you likely know all-to-well what it was: a recession.

This recession has been so widely hyped up for many reasons, the least of which include the folding of several major American banks and the bankruptcy of an entire country (you did what you could, Iceland).  However, more than anything, this recession has been so widely pumped-up simply because it was the first major recession that an entire generation of people had ever experienced.  For those born in the 1980s and beyond, a recession was something they had never had the pleasure of experiencing.  Until now, that is.

Not only that, but the Internet and the world’s ability to send and receive information in a tenth of a second makes it easier than ever before to transmit news.  Of course, doom and gloom sells nearly as good as sex, and that’s what’s been all over TV and the Internet.

Economic Recession Myths: You Can Still Buy a Home, Dummy!

One thing that seems to be circulated more than anything is the myth that the recession, with all of its economic hardship and financial disparity, has made it impossible for your average Joe to purchase a home or obtain a mortgage.  To be blunt: if you believe that, you are wrong.

In fact, now is the time for a qualified buyer to snatch up great deals!  The only people who are going to be taken for a ride when purchasing a home are the people who aren’t qualified to do so (hey, isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?).  Are you a qualified buyer?  If you meet the following criteria, then you may very well be:

1. You have a down payment – You don’t need to have 25% of the purchase value as a down payment, but having as little as 5% can take you from under-qualified to prime lending material.  Do you due diligence and spend some time saving money before you start shopping.
2. You have decent credit – This one isn’t as important as you think.  Yes, good credit is still an obvious requirement for purchasing a home, but you can also play with this value a little.  Paying down your current debt is always a great way to improve your credit, but don’t discount the value that your down payment can play.  Someone with a FICO score of 650 (the North American average) may not obtain a mortgage with a 5% down payment on a $450,000 home, but they may be able to obtain that same mortgage with a 15% down payment- or if they assume the mortgage of the current homeowner.  Food for thought.
3. You maintain a consistent lifestyle – No lender is going to give you money if you are very ad-hoc with your spending and credit.  If a lender runs your credit bureau (which they will) and sees that you’ve tried to obtain a mortgage as well as $75,000 worth of other credit they are likely going to see you as a greater risk than if you had no other credit applications in the last year or two.

You Don’t Need Great Cards to Build a Great House

The people living under a house of cards are the people that won’t be obtaining mortgages.  All this talk of a “new economy” is really just the lending market going back to basics: people with good credit, savings, and a down payment are the people who are going to enjoy prime mortgage rates and lending opportunities.

Be smart, clean up your credit, and save some money for a while.  Sure, it may mean living in your apartment for another couple of years, but it could be the difference between a mortgage at a competitive interest rate and no mortgage at all.

Do you think the recession has axed your chances at obtaining a mortgage? Think again. Buying your dream-home is still a very real possibility, despite the recession.

PMC Property Group of Philadelphia purchased the 120-unit apartment building at 2900 Kensington Ave. from a group of investors including Robin Miller, principal of Miller & Associates, who developed the property in 1999.

This is PMC’s only property listed in Virginia; the firm also has apartments in Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

Neither party could be reached for comment.

The property was purchased for just $500,000 more than its assessed price of $9 million. It had previously been listed for sale on LoopNet.com for $11 million.

Miller bought the building in a foreclosure auction for $1.22 million in 1998. The previous occupants operated an adult-care home that lost its license.

WM Jordan construction completed a $5.28 million restoration of the property shortly after it was purchased by Miller.

The building was constructed in 1924 and was the original home of Johnston-Willis Hospital, which later moved to Chesterfield County.

Before we can fully understand the use and importance of sustainable materials in renovations, we have to learn what it is first and why is there such big fuzz about its use.

What are sustainable materials?

These are green materials. A perfect example of sustainable material is the bamboo. This means that once you use them, they will be able to replenish or generate their kind. Thus, it will not compromise the environment. However, you should not leave the replenishing to the materials alone. You have to take part in its development by ensuring that as they regenerate themselves, they have the necessary nutrients to grow strong and healthy.

Why use sustainable materials?

A lot of groups have been encouraging the use of these materials. You might ask why? So what if the materials you use are unable to replenish themselves, at least you get the chance to use them, right? Wrong! If everyone thinks this way, just think of how the world will look ten years from now? We are slowly experiencing the wrath of nature because most of us failed to take care of it. If we do not do our share today, the results in the future could be catastrophic.

You can contribute in saving our environment by using sustainable materials whenever you can. Using such materials during renovations is a big help. Just think of how many people renovate their homes. There are few aspects of sustainable you can consider to ensure that you are environmentally responsible. Some of them are identified below.

If you are to renovate your home, use locally developed sustainable materials. It has to be found in your localities to reduce the travel time, expenses and energy. Keep in mind that transporting materials will still create problems in the environment. Automobiles use gas and it emits toxic substances that harm the environment.

You also have to keep important points in mind when choosing materials for the renovation. As much as possible, it should create minimal damage to the environment. They should not only be renewable, they have to be non-toxic as well. Most importantly, they have to be recyclable. Bear in mind that the renovations you make will not last forever. Other changes will be made in the future. The materials you will use should not add more waste. Instead, other people should find different means to use it.

If you are having a difficult time figuring out what to use, consult Green Architects. You will be surprised with the number of choices they have available for you. They can even look around your property and find materials that you can use for the renovation. They can also help you find a supplier. Finding the right supplier is essential to ensure that you get the materials you want. You have to let them know what you need. Most suppliers are not used to sustainable materials. This is why homeowners should help in raising awareness.

All of us have to be environmentally responsible. Our choices will help make that happen. The use of sustainable materials will help restore our natural resources.

http://www.realestatearticledirectory.com/articles/real-estate-marketing-for-the-homeseller/article261.html

Additionally, if you are trying to sell and it’s not selling fast enough, there are plenty other options you may not have heard about…..contact us today to help!!!! 804.358.3888

Richmond Biz Sense

Brace yourself, commercial real estate pros. It’s bad, and it will probably get worse before it gets better.

That was the overall consensus among speakers at the annual Virginia Commonwealth University Real Estate Trends Conference held yesterday at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

Nearly 800 real estate professionals attended the event, a record according to a VCU spokesperson. And despite the rough times, the conference was not short on sponsors —nearly 40 local real-estate-related businesses contributed to the event.

Sally Gordon, managing director for the advisory firm BlackRock, said it will be several years before prices return to what they were at their height in 2007; in fact, they might not return to those levels at all.

“I suggest most assets were never worth in the first place what we thought they were,” Gordon said. “There is no law of nature that stipulates to what level prices will return to.”

She compared the overvaluation of some commercial real estate to that of dot-com companies that imploded in the 1990s.

According to her analysis, property values have fallen about 40 percent from the peak, which puts us about where they were in 2003. She said she wouldn’t be surprised so see prices continue to fall before bottoming out around 50 percent.

Falling prices are bad news for commercial real estate investors with loans coming due over the next three years, many of which will find themselves underwater, she said.

***

Stephen Blank, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute,  delivered a presentation about capital markets that was peppered with humorous cartoons from the New Yorker.

But the prognosis Blank delivered was grim.

“This crisis is going to be going on for a while,” Blank said.

He said that without securitized bonds for commercial mortgages, such as CMBS loans, lending for commercial real estate has dried up, and it’s not clear what will replace it.

“CMBS is past life support,” said Blank. “The amount of loans issued peaked at $250 billion in 2007; today it is so small there isn’t even a shadow.”

He said servicers of CMBS loans and banks with commercial real estate loans are extending the terms on many of the loans that are coming due rather than foreclosing if the borrower is unable to pay off the balance — for now.

Refinancing in this environment, or getting loans for new projects or acquisitions, is incredibly difficult because of the lack of comparable sales. And lenders are only likely to extend terms to those borrowers that are current.

Without a long-term replacement for CMBS, which may require some form of government assistance, eventually lenders will have to start step up foreclosures.

“The market is clearly sitting there with a wave of extensions that is leading to a wave of defaults,” said Blank.

***

David Lereah, president of Reecon Advisors, delivered mixed news for the residential real estate market.

“It’s been a frenzied environment for residential real estate,” Lereah said.

He said the good news was that supply is starting to fall and sales are starting to increase. But there are still more than 2 million vacant homes across the country, he said, and foreclosures are continuing to rise, jobs are still being lost, and homes are losing value in double digit percentages.

The number of home sales is rising in places like Nevada and Arizona that were hit hardest by foreclosures, he said. Meanwhile, in Virginia the number of home sales is still declining, he said.

In Richmond he said the medium sale price for homes has fallen more than 11 percent year-over-year, but that it doesn’t seem as bad if you compare it to places like Los Angeles, Las Vegas or Orlando, where prices have fallen between 25 percent and almost 40 percent.

And overall, home values are up since 2000.

“It’s the only way to look at it if you want to sleep at night,” said Lereah.

***

The last speaker was Jeffrey DeBoer, president and CEO of the Real Estate Roundtable.

For the past 25 years, DeBoer has lobbied Washington on behalf of the real estate industry, and he said this is the most challenging environment in decades.

He said over the past several years the amount of debt supporting commercial real estate has grown considerably. He valued the total of U.S. commercial real estate to be about $6.7 trillion, of which $3.5 trillion is debt, with an average of $400 billion maturing each year.

“Its like taking a 13 size and dropping it in a size 10 box,” De Boer said. “The financial architecture of America is not big enough to accept the shoe, which is maturing debt.”

DeBoer praised a new Treasury policy that allows borrowers to enter negotiations with CMBS loan servicers before a default or foreclosure took place. Under previous rules the borrower could not, and many were walking away from properties or purposefully going into default in order to begin to work out new terms with the servicer.

He said there is a great debate going on in the Capitol over whether coming commercial real estate failures will cause minimal damage to the overall economy, or whether they pose systemic risk.

So far the damage has been held off because bank has been allowed to hold onto repossessed commercial real estate assets instead of selling them and writing down the losses. But DeBoer said some argue that holding the assets is holding back the recovery of real estate and preventing repricing from taking place.

DeBoer said he is still unsure what the best resolution will be.

“Certainly some of the larger institutions are going to start to see regulators push more aggressive on them to take the losses,” DeBoer said. “But flush this out now, and you will see a lot more than just the 400 banks that have already failed.”

With today’s troubled economy, many homeowners are in trouble. With mounting debt due to unemployment or cut salaries, many people are falling behind on their mortgage payments and inching closer to bank foreclosure. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. There is help available to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and get back on track. This article provides some helpful tips to guide you through the process of loan modifications.

By Joel Owens

Right now, an estimated 300 thousand home owners are able to stop foreclosure through the aid of the loan modification process that is backed up by the Obama bailout bill. Ever since the economy blew up some time ago, the administration has already set up a stimulus program that would help all the people in danger of foreclosure to fight and keep their homes despite all the loss of income and financial hardships that they are facing.

The question that most home owners in danger of foreclosure right now is whether he or she can qualify for this modification of mortgage backed up by the Obama bailout stimulus. What are the specific details that would make one eligible for this program? What factors could hinder one from getting approved in the application process? What other things can one do in order have a better chance of success?

There are a lot of people who can no longer consider refinancing as an option for saving their homes from their financial crisis. Those who want to keep their houses or simply need to lower your mortgage monthlies in order to keep a loose budget can choose a loan workout in order to work out their problems. The Obama administration has set aside $75 billion dollars in order to aid home owners such as yourself and to stimulate lenders and banks to modify loans successfully.

Here are some few principles and tips that can help guide you through your mortgage help application:

- If the home owner has an adjustable rate or a sub-prime, he or she is a good candidate for the program. These are because many of these mortgages can simply re-adjust to a much higher interest. The increase of these interest rates is what causes the ballooning of the monthly bills and thus causing financial troubles

- Regarding the financial hardship situation of the owner, this must be of a legitimate cause. A letter explaining the hardship will be required of the home owner and the acceptable reasons are the following: military duty; divorce or any kind of separation; loss of income; disability, injury or medical, death in the family; unavoidable increased necessary expenses; and relocation of job destination. This hardship letter should precisely and briefly explain the important details of the home owner’s your situation which will help the lender evaluate whether the home owner in question should be approved of loan modification.

- Regarding lending laws, home owners must be aware of important laws such as the Truth in Lending Act that has been written in order to protect the concerns of consumers everywhere. In the process of getting one’s mortgage, some disclosures needs to be given by the borrower in a time given time window. If the home owner does not receive these documents, or if the home owner gets documents that are that have some different information from the original papers, then the home owner is likely to have a valid legal case. Those lenders that have been seen to violate some of the consumer protection rights will get strict repercussions.

A computer graduate and loves to travel. Reading current news in the internet is one of his past times. Taking pictures of the things around him fully satisfies him. He loves to play badminton and his favorite pets are cats and walk with them in the park with some dogs.

From this article:

“According to Wingfield, because youʼre moving companies—it means you are relocating people—“local quality of life and culture are highlighted to entice relocation. Itʼs our job to tell the regionʼs story.” Telling the story, a term that Wingfield cites often in discussing the Partnership mission, means tailoring information about the region to correspond to the multifaceted needs of various industries including healthcare, manufacturing, technology, and finance and insurance.

Ronen Zohar, Sabra CEO, told the Richmond Times‑Dispatch, “We looked in a lot of other places and at the end of the day we understood that the best place for us to take our dream and our vision, to make it true, is here in Chesterfield.”

So in the highly‑competitive arena for new companies, what sold Sabra on Chesterfield? “The Richmond regionʼs strong presence of international food companies was among the deciding factors for Sabra to locate here,” Wingfield says. Current projections estimate 260 new jobs will result from the Sabra $59 million 110,000-square-foot plant on a 49-acre site in the Ruffin Mill Industrial Park.

Speaking of highly competitive, Elephant Insurance (UK) took six months and seriously scrutinized Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago and Charlotte before selecting 26,000 square feet of office space in Henrico Countyʼs Innsbrook area.”

View this article for yourself and the many other excitement available at:

http://www.richmondliveworkplay.com/index.asp?ID=170

This will be one of the many reasons why Richmond continues to be “on the map” in the U.S. as one of the TOP 10 Cities “on the rise” and “stable in real estate”–What an honor to live and do business in our CITY!!

Please feel welcome to comment.

And know that the Snipes Team is definitely “relational and not transactional” when it comes to your housing needs, questions, and future! We appreciate your referrals and look forward to a very strong 2010!

Richmond Times-Dispatch

The commercial real estate market in the Richmond area continues to reel from the recession, with the office vacancy rate expected to climb to 21.4 percent in the next six months.

It’s now at 16.5 percent, far from a healthy 10 percent level, said William E. Bradley, a research analyst at CB Richard Ellis, a commercial real estate firm in Richmond.

Yet, for all the bad news, real estate experts say the worst is likely over.

Meanwhile, the area in and around the Innsbrook Corporate Center in western Henrico County is expected to suffer the worst, with vacancies rising as high as 36 percent in the next six months. It now stands at 22.8 percent.

Vacancy rates in all but one of 11 areas in the Richmond region are projected to rise.

The area along Staples Mill Road from West Broad Street north to Parham Road likely will remain at 25.1 percent — already the region’s highest vacancy rate.

The next highest vacancy rate is the Innsbrook area, followed by the area near the Boulders office park in Chesterfield County at 20.3 percent, CB Richard Ellis reports.

The areas with the lowest rates are Stony Point in South Richmond at 5.3 percent, the Ashland area at 7.1 percent, and the section of Parham Road from Interstate 64 to I-95 at 8 percent.

Evan Magrill, a senior vice president at Thalhimer/Cushman & Wakefield brokerage in Richmond, said he has never seen this much empty office space in the Richmond region in his 16 years in the commercial real estate market.

“There is still lease activity. The market is not at a complete standstill,” Magrill said.

But it’s definitely a tenant’s market. “The tenants have the upper hand and are negotiating attractive terms,” he said.

The law office Sands Anderson Marks & Miller, for example, is upgrading at about the same cost to newer offices, moving three blocks next year to the top two floors of the Bank of America building at 1111 E. Main St., Magrill said.

“That’s a trend we are likely to see as people move into nicer space and keep their costs about the same,” he said.

“Landlords who do not concede at least several months of free rent on a five-year deal are likely to lose tenants,” according to a recent Thalhimer report.

At Riverfront Plaza in downtown Richmond, lease rates have fallen from $20 a square foot to $15 a square foot because an abundance of sublease space has hit the market, Thalhimer reported.

Landlords can be described as “anxious,” according to Jones Lang LaSalle, a Chicago-based real estate brokerage that recently opened a local office.

Landlords are offering concessions such as fixing up space for tenants and paying moving expenses in addition to free rent and lower rental rates.

“With vacancy [rates] climbing, existing tenants becoming more unstable and capital virtually frozen, landlords are salivating at the opportunity to lure a quality tenant to their assets,” the Jones Lang report says.

The vacancy rate in the Innsbrook area will be pushed up in the next couple of months by leases coming due on buildings once occupied by the now-defunct LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. and a move next year by MeadWestvaco, a packaging company, to its new downtown headquarters.

That area’s high vacancy rate has been driven by big blocks of space left by the bankruptcies of major employers, notably LandAmerica, a real estate services provider, and consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc., Bradley said.

The three LandAmerica buildings could be retrofitted for multiple tenants, he said. “But the average tenant wouldn’t even look at the Circuit City buildings.”

The largest of two empty office buildings on the former Circuit City campus is six stories with each floor measuring 63,000 square feet — or 1.4 acres, bigger than most home lots.

“The big question is whether there will be any more catastrophic events, such as the bankruptcy of Circuit City, to hit the market. We think the answer is ‘no,’” the Jones Lang report states.

The lifeblood of the commercial real estate industry is an employed work force. As companies shed workers, they need less office space. The unemployment rate in the Richmond area was 7.7 percent in August, up from 4.6 percent a year ago.

Jane duFrane, leasing director for Highwoods Properties, said the market has been tough. “We think 2010 will be just as soft.”

Highwoods owns 34 buildings in the Richmond area. Ten of its 24 buildings in Innsbrook area have space available for lease.

Small companies are looking for space, typically a sign that a recession is ending, duFrane said.

“Luckily for Richmond, there are not a bunch of cranes in the air,” she said.

In other words, no one is constructing buildings on speculation, so when demand picks up, in theory prospective tenants would take available space.