What’s the Wall Street Impact on You?
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| It’s hard not to notice the housing market is in the hot seat these days. Between the credit crunch, the new Housing Law, rising foreclosures, the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae takeover, and now the financial market turmoil, it’s hard not to worry about your finances. How will all these changes affect you? | |||
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| The answer may not be simple, but we’ve pulled together some questions and advice from real home buyers, sellers, and locals that may give you the information you need. | |||
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| Q: What will be the effect of today’s melt-down on wall st. on home values and mortgage rates? Asked by Kojn Scicc, Home Buyer in Alexandria, VA A: In the short term, it’s only the beginning of a fairly long process of restoring credit liquidity. In the long run, it’s probably a… see more or reply |
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| Q: What are the options for sellers who owe more than their house is now worth? Asked by RKB, Home Seller in Madison, WI A: People who did qualify for a home two years ago, don’t even come close in today’s mortgage standards. Talk to your lender and attorney. Find out what will happen to you financially and legally if you do… see more or reply |
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| How to check a bank’s FDIC insurance status With the wild ride that banking institutions and insurance companies have been on lately, you might wonder how safe is your money? You can check out a bank’s FDIC insurance status by going to the… see more or reply |
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| Written by Janeese Jackson, Real Estate Professional, Portland, OR |
| Advice & Opinions Ι Get insightful, fast, FREE advice on home buying & selling | |||||||||||||||||
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| Happy House Hunting | |||||||||||||||||
| The best place to start your real estate search Trulia Inc. 208 Utah Street #310 San Francisco CA 94103 |
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Paul Newman Passes
I came across a Paul Newman tribute post on Trulia Blog’s written by Ronda Allen.
As you may know, Paul Newman passed away on Friday at 83.
It struck a chord with me personally because I recently lost a family member to cancer. Paul Newman was well recognized for his film and acting career where he:
- Acted in 81 films
- Produced 10
- Directed 6
- Wrote 1
- and had guest appearances in 82
As Ronda mentioned in her post, Paul was a dedicated husband (married for 50 years to Joanne Woodward)
Through Paul’s natural food company Newman’s Own, Paul donated $120 million to charity and he also started an international kids’ camp and drug abuse center.
While writing this post, I came across another post about Paul in the Entertainment & Nightlife category written by our very own Roger.
Paul primarily spent his time with his family at his home in Westport, CT and Beverly Hills, CA.
As Roger said, he was a great man and he will be missed.
1 comment
Share Your Favorites on Trulia and Win a Dash GPS Device!
To celebrate the recent launch of Trulia Blogs and Trulia Mobile, we’re hosting a Hidden Gems blog contest and the winner gets a free Dash Express GPS device!
Everyone has their favorite local secret spots. Why not share them on your Trulia blog and enter to win a super-sweet prize? You can blog about anything that’s not-well-known in your area: a restaurant, your dry cleaner, a local park, a hidden shoe store, anything! The best post will win the contest and the prize – a brand new Dash Express GPS device.
The Dash is great GPS device and we’re really happy to work with the Dash team. Our new Trulia in your car product is built for the Dash and helps you find real estate listings when you’re out and about.
To kick off the contest, check out this great post from Vicky about her favorite local restaurant (note: Vicky is not eligible to win the contest 
).
The contest is open until October 11th and you can enter as many times as you like. You can find all the details, including how to enter, on the Hidden Gems contest page.
Happy Blogging!
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Shine your spotlight everywhere
Trulia Pro customers just got more bang for their buck. When we first launched Trulia Pro, we served Local Spotlight Ads only on our search results page. While the search page gets tons of traffic on our site, we knew that we wanted to give our advertisers access to consumers in other parts of our site too. That’s why when we released brand new stats and trends pages this week, we decided to start serving Local Spotlight Ads on these hyper-local pages as well.
At Trulia, we talk to lots of real estate professionals, and we always listen carefully to what they tell us. Here are a few key things that I’ve learned from them and how they’re reflected in Local Spotlight Ads:
Lesson 1: Real estate is local. – Every agent defines his/her “turf” slightly differently. That’s why Trulia Pro customers can target their spotlight ads to up to 20 “locations”, but each location can be either a city, neighborhood, or zip code. This way, agents in rural areas can choose several cities, whereas agents in urban areas can choose their primary city, but then also hone in on specific neighborhoods.
Lesson 2: Agents work hard to define their own brands. – This is why Local Spotlight Ads are easily customized. You can choose your photo, the text of your ad, and the location users will be sent when they click. If you have your own blog or website, you can send users there. If, however, you don’t have your own site, or you’d like potential customers to see your contributions on Trulia Voices, you can send them to your profile page.
Lesson 3: The more exposure the better. – Okay, so this isn’t really earth-shattering at all, but at some point, marketing becomes a bit of a numbers game. Getting more clients means getting in front of more prospects, etc. We wanted to make sure that agents had great exposure on Trulia to the 5 million users who use Trulia every month. That’s why we made the move to serve these ads not just in one place on Trulia, but now in 5. More here…
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Happy Birthday Trulia – And who would have thought
September continues to be a very special month for us at Trulia. Three years ago we released the first beta version of Trulia.com in California as a five (yes, 5!) person start-up and two years ago we launched nationwide.
Wow – time has flown and a lot of things both internally and externally have changed in the last two years since we went nationwide in the middle of a housing boom. The real estate environment at that time is well characterized by the book that was published at the end of 2006: “Flipping Houses for Dummies”.
Since then we’ve enjoyed phenomenal growth thanks to our hard working team and loyal partners and clients, but who would have really thought that all this would happen in just two years since September 2006…
Externally..
• The most fundamental pillars of the U.S. mortgage market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac go bankrupt and are eventually investigated by the FBI for potential fraud.
• All starting from the mortgage melt down, one of the most capitalistic government’s in the world would prepare for a $700 Billion dollar bail out of Wall Street.
• Something that we started in 2005, becomes common vocabulary for all real estate industry participants: “Listing syndication” is not anymore a “What” or “Should we”, but “How” and “Where” question for brokers, MLS’s and agents.
• Realtors would start acquiring real new clients using online social media when social networking was thought of as something kids used to do on Friendster and MySpace.
Internally..We would have:
• More than 80 Trulia team members on two coasts
• More than 5 Million monthly unique users on Trulia
• More than 100,000 real estate professionals on our Voices platform and several thousand paying local advertisers
• More than 100 happy large enterprise clients across the country
• More than 3 Million property listings, almost all directly from broker feeds
• Risen more than 50 positions on the Comscore list of real estate sites (see below Comscore for August 2008)
• No segways, private offices, aeron chairs or private chefs at the office – Yes, we are still very frugal and proud of it!
Thank you everyone for your great participation and contribution during the last 3 years!
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Notes from Trulia’s Industry Call on The State of the Real Estate Market
Today, Trulia CEO Pete Flint hosted an Industry call with some of the top leaders in Real Estate – Jonathan Miller, President/CEO and Co-Founder of Miller Samuel, Barbara Corcoran, Real Estate Guru and Founder of The Corcoran Group and David Michonski, Chairman and CEO of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy.
Download or Listen to the complete panel discussion below:
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Pete started the call by sharing some thoughts and observations about today’s real estate market:
When Trulia launched three years ago, housing prices were at an all time high. Toxic sub-prime loans were quite easy to get. Since then, the market has done a virtual 360º. According to President Bush, the US economy is on the brink of serious financial crisis.
Pete noted, “The recent economic and housing data are sobering. US unemployment has hit a 5-year high, foreclosure filings are up 12% month-over-month nationwide and according to NAR numbers released yesterday, existing home sales are down 10.7% from the beginning of the year.”
Overall, Americans are “spooked” by what has happened in the financial markets, housing market and the overall US economy. Citizens are confused about what the $700 billion bailout means and what will happen if passed or not. Lot’s of uncertainty. We wanted to better understand how Americans felt about the financial and housing crisis so just last week, we commissioned a study with Harris Interactive.
We’ll release the results next week but want to share some early findings about what consumers are thinking:
1. Less than 50% of Americans think home ownership is a great long term investment
2. Only 56% of Americans view owning a home as part of achieving the American Dream
3. 22% of Americans plan to downsize in the next 12-months and 59% of respondents never plan to move from their current home
We’re paying close attention to this early feedback and wonder if the change in people’s thoughts about home ownership is a major shift or just a knee-jerk reaction.
To get things started, Pete asked the panel, “What does the crisis mean to the Market and Homeowners Today? and “Over the next 6-12 months,what can we expect to see happening both in New York and Nationally?”
Jonathan Miller said, “The key economic driver in New York City is Wallstreet which accounts for 5% of the jobs and 23% of the income.” He talked about how the credit crunch really started in the summer of 2007. The expectations of bonuses were all over the map. We had 4-5 years of record bonus levels. New York was the second to last to feel the slowdown behind Charlotte, North Carolina. Ironic, since New York was the origin of the crisis led by securitized mortgages. Inventory in Manhattan is modest today, lower than last year and higher than 2 years ago. 52% of sales in New York City are Co-op’s – Cooperative apartments where owners own shares in a corporation rather than real property. He thinks that in 2009, housing stock will drop more. The bottom line – the credit situation needs to be resolved first before we see any recovery.
Barbara Corcoran asked, “Is Bad News Contagious?” Her resounding answer was - Yes! She says that home buyers are the first to run for the hills. Even qualified people are on the sidelines – this is true for 90% of the markets. Bad news passes fast from one guy to the next. We all have it big time. Ironically, now is actually a good time to buy because inventory is up, prices are lower – these are the good ol’ days. But everyone is out-psyched by the media and all the bad news. There is always a silver lining if you just look.
According to Barbara – Sellers have a deaf ear and take a year to wake up. Prices are not low enough and inching them down is not the answer.
They need to:
1. Drastically reduce the price and undercut every home in their category by 20-25%. There’s always a market for under priced homes.
2. Wait it out
3. Rent the house
She says people have options. When asked about her prediction for the rest of 2008 and 2009 she says, “Who the heck knows!” People are beat down and feel bad already – can’t get any worse. Actually, she’s annoyed by the whole thing. Feels like the American Dream is going down the drain.
David Michonski said, It all depends on the credit. It’s all locked up. Housing is affected negatively. Some of the richest New Yorker’s are losing jobs which will effect the upper part of the NYC market. A new entity has to get all the bad debt off the books. He says, “Sooner we get off the funny money, sooner stabilization occurs.”
Credit Crisis – Loss of confidence in American banking and finance. Thinks the Commercial real estate markets will be the 1st to see trouble. Rents will come down on Madison Avenue. Retail rents will come down.
David Carusso of the Associated Press asked Barbara if we had data to show to scared buyers. Barbara said that it’s harder to get hands on money but the banks have money. The media is just confusing buyers – misinformation. If you have good credit, it’s a good time to get financing. Not a good time for those with bad credit but they aren’t in the market to buy anyway.
Jonathan Miller jumped in and added that those who qualify will actually qualify for less today than 2 years ago. Ratio for qualifying has tightened. This is really due the the three year window from 2004-2006 where the bad lending practices thrived – securitization. After 9/11, the Fed pumped money into the economy. When housing prices rise, participation falls.
Brad Reagan from Smart Money Magazine wanted to know for those with lots of cash on hand and good credit, what their strategies were and were they good strategies.
Barbara said there are brave souls in the market today.
Jonathan said there is a pause. A hesitation in the market. Too much to digest. Sense of urgency not there.
Barbara shared a remarkable story from last week where a really really famous and rich person called her, on his wife’s advice, because he wanted her opinion whether it was ok for him to sign the contract for a $47 million apartment he was in the middle of purchasing. He was about to sign the contract and was shaking in his boots. Barbara said this beats any story she’s heard over the last few weeks….
A Forbes reporter asked about pricing trends and Jonathan said that the upper 10% outperformed all other sectors of the market. There was a 30% contraction in inventory whereas there was a 31% increase in inventory in all other markets - quite the opposite.
The second home market has had a sharp drop in the number of transactions in conjunction with a rise in inventory.
David noted that currently, we’re not building enough homes for growth to meet the growing population which will grow from 300 million to 400 million by 2040
In summation, Pete asked everyone to give their 6-18 month National outlook:
Jonathan said we will see no change in 6 months. 2-3 years not so good but long term is good. We’ll move sideways in the next couple of years.
Barbara said nothing changes in the next 6 months. Will be surprised if the spring market picks up. Lack of confidence is the issue. It will depend on who leads the country and what changes they will make. We need dramatic changes to make a huge change in the market. But doesn’t have the confidence that Washington will come through. We need a leader who will come through for America.
Any Brightspots?
Jonathan likes that people are starting to come clean re: their balance sheets. We’re only in the second or third inning of the game – but we have some progress.
David says the housing recession will not have a “V-Shaped” recovery. The market is trying to find the sloppy bottom. We have a pool of demand waiting out there.
Bonus:
We hit the streets of New York City to get some thoughts from New Yorkers about the $700 Billion Bailout proposal and how it would effect the housing market.
Here is what they had to say:
So what are your thoughts on the proposed bailout and how it has/will effect the housing market?
3 commentsNew Stats and Trends Pages on Trulia
We just updated our Stats and Trend pages and even added a few new ones including – Real Estate Overview, Market Trends & Community Info pages. We made it easier to access some of the other great local content on our School District and Schools pages along with our popular Home Price Heat Maps.
There is some new functionality that people have been asking for, namely the ability to take any of our price charts on these pages and embed them on on your own site and blog – average sales price, median sales price, number of sales and average price per sq ft. In addition, you can now customize the graphs even more with different time frames, narrow prices by bedroom and we have Stats & Trends pages for all cities and neighborhoods across the U.S..
Real Estate Overview
Just click on the City and State of your choice to see the new Real Estate Overview page – e.g. San Francisco, California.
Market Trends
Then click on the Market Trends link to see the details in your market such as average listing price, Number of listings, median sales price, number of sales, average price per square foot, popular neighborhoods and Homes for sale in the area. – e.g. San Francisco Market trends
Home Prices
Schools
Then click on schools to get details about the local schools and school districts in your area – e.g. San Francisco Schools
Community
Community info pages include crime statistics, community statistics and more. – e.g. San Francisco Community Info page
So please check out the new look and functionality and let us know what you think.
1 commentHow Can I Reach out to International Home Buyers?
I’ve increasingly heard questions from our various industry clients and partners like, “How can I reach out to International buyers?” or “Are you planning to do something internationally?” Not only that, my European friends have started bombarding me with questions like, “Can you help me understand the local real estate market in the U.S.? and “Where should I buy now?” That is not only because I happen to have strong European roots, but the weak dollar and obvious real estate bargains have increased fellow Europeans’ appetite to buy U.S. real estate.
The good news for U.S. based brokers and agents is that the Internet has made it easy for even the smallest local company to promote themselves internationally. As an example, Trulia is a 100% U.S. focused online real estate search site, but it attracts a large number of international home buyers and investors. We’ve previously posted some testimonials from agents who have found international buyers through Trulia. Inspired by the recent flux of questions from local companies and international buyers, I decided to dig a little deeper and share our numbers for everyone’s benefit.
What States are International Home Buyers looking at on Trulia?
Here are the TOP 6 states with the largest international audience (% of all visits from outside of U.S.)
It may come as no surprise that the sun state is the most searched location for international buyers. Considering Trulia’s more than 5 Million unique users each month, these percentages speak huge volumes.
How about at a city level?
Miami, Florida still tops the list, but what is most surprising is that at a city level the international audience is more than 10% for the Top 5 U.S. Cities – Miami, L.A., Orlando, NYC/Manhattan and Las Vegas.
And to translate the percentages into something more tangible, for example in Manhattan, we had more than 20,000 unique international buyers searching during last quarter.
Where are these international buyers coming from?
Here’s an example for Manhattan – U.K. topping the list: (percentage of international visitors coming from each country):
How do we know all this?
We simply track where the users are coming from and match that with what they are looking for on Trulia. As a result we are also able to offer our advertisers hyper targeted advertising campaigns, for example: “Display this advertisement specifically for European buyers who are searching in Manhattan” or “Display this Chinese ad for those Asians who are searching for homes in San Francisco”.
Good luck with finding international buyers! They are out there in large volumes now! If you want to create some hyper targeted advertising campaigns, please contact our sales team.
3 commentsHouse Rich and Cash Poor – Can We Afford to Buy This Home?
Image via True Gotham
Have you ever heard the term House Rich and Cash Poor? If you own a McMansion, but have no furniture and eat Ramen noodles every night, you might be house rich and cash poor. Generally, it means you financially overextended yourself. Andy, a home buyer from Alpharetta, Georgia, asked this weeks top viewed question on Trulia Voices – “Our combined income is around $121k a year. Are we being unrealistic looking at homes priced close to $500k?” By asking our real estate community for advice, Andy has taken a proactive measure to assist him in making a very important home buying decision. One that will hopefully help him and his wife live comfortably within their means.
Feedback from our Trulia Voices Community
Jeff Mitchell, a real estate agent from Vero Beach, Florida, says, “A fairly conventional guideline is that your home payment costs including taxes and insurance should not exceed 30 to 33% of income. You should also have some savings in place in addition to your down payment and closing costs to be on the safe side. The recommended savings is about 6 months of living expenses. If you have been pre-approved with a reliable mortgage lender, your finances are probably in good shape.”
Joshua Jarvis, a real estate agent from Atlanta, Georgia said, “It’s about your budget. What can you afford per month… and what does that translate into a home. Get your budget straight is only the first step. Getting a plan and strategy together is your second step. You need to plan on how long you will live there, what is your equity strategy (how much will you put down) and what is your exit strategy… i.e. Rental, resale… ect.”
Real estate agent Hank Miller from Georgia, said,”Your lender and your agent can work up what the expected monthly carrying cost of a home can be. Budget that with your other expenses; add a few percent for the unexpected and you’ll get an idea of what you can afford. Obviously at that point you need to start checking inventory, then hopefully find something that matches. Don’t buy a home to get rich, buy a home to have a rich life and enjoyTrulia Blog – Real Estate Search › Edit — WordPress the benefits that come with owning your home.”
Lee Adkins, a real estate agent from Alpharetta, Georgia said, “If you are not working with an agent yet, you should talk to the guys here on Trulia (you can click on their pictures for direct contact info) and/or ask for referrals from friends who have had good, direct experiences with particular agents. I would recommend interviewing more than one agent to find the one who best suits you and understands your goals.”
Ty Davis, a home buyer in Atlanta, Georgia said,”Although many people will probably disagree with this, most people who know a thing or two about finance will say that you should spend between 2-3x your annual income on a home. Actually, one person said you should spend about 30% of your net monthly income on a payment, which ends up being in the 2.75x range. I personally believe this to be a wee high, but that’s just my opinion.”
Jenifer Bowman, a real estate agent from Atlanta, Georgia said, “Personally, I always tell my clients to go for a house that is less than they were approved for. Approved numbers are in a perfect world.”
Andy followed up in the thread and said, “Wow what a bunch of great responses!!! Definitely some things for my wife and I to think about. We already have an excellent Realtor that we’re working with. Unfortunately, we keep seeing the same houses for sale week after week with very few new ones coming onto the market.”
My Thoughts
As a home buyer, Andy is doing his homework. Our voices community is providing some valuable answers. It’s another healthy conversation.
Today’s unique local market conditions dictate that home buyers complete their due diligence about the local housing market, their own financial standing and their purchasing power. A knowledgeable local real estate agent and mortgage broker can help home buyers make the best informed home buying decisions. As you can see, we have some great ones right here on Trulia Voices.
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In the mind, body and spirit of Trulia
Let’s be honest. Work is stressful. Deadlines, goals to meet, how can you keep it all straight? While we’d like to think that working here in T-town is more fun than taxing (well, maybe it’s both), we still understand the rigors of the day-to-day. The “People Track” here at Team Trulia has come up with a small reprieve from the mayhem with our quarterly Mind and Body day. We put another one on last Friday, and I think it was the most successful yet!
The morning kicked off with a 9:00 am intermediate yoga class led by my favorite yogi, Skeeter Barker. At 11 am, she took newbie practitioners on a tour de relaxation with 20+ participants!
The group of glowing faces then made their way up to the organic lunch table at Noon.
In the afternoon, Erica, my (hula) hooping partner in crime, joined me to teach a beginner instructional. It was awesome to see my fellow Trulians loving their hoops – Ben our resident Pythonista & Louis our Java beast were the surprise favorites.
The afternoon also featured chair massage, a bike ride, and a soccer (translation: Futbol) game in the field across the street. Here are some of the road warriors in action:
Daniele is rocking his Trulia Green wig. Work it, guys.
These kinds of days at Trulia remind me of why it’s such an awesome place to work! Come work at Trulia!
1 commentGet social with us.
