Posts Tagged ‘Real Estate’

Stanford U. looking to sell $1 bln in assets -WSJ

Oct 3, 2009 Make Money Online

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Stanford University is looking to sell as much as $1 billion worth of investments including private equity investments, real estate and timberlands, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The university, which lost about a quarter of its endowment last year, is weighing offers on all of its illiquid investments, worth about $5 billion, but is only interested in selling parts of its investments, the Journal reported.

The university is looking to sell only about 10 percent to 20 percent of its private-equity, venture-capital, oil-and-gas, timber and real-estate holdings, but could sell more in various areas depending on demand, the newspaper said. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Gary Hill)

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Banesto creates holding for real estate assets

Oct 1, 2009 Make Money Online

Spanish bank Banesto (BTO.MC) said on Thursday it had created a holding company to manage its real estate assets called Mesena SGI and had already sold some 1,300 homes, or 40 percent of its property stock.

“Sales are taking place at a good pace,” Banesto said in a statement.

Banks have borne the brunt of Spain’s propery market fall-out, renegotiating multi-billion euro loans or taking stakes in property companies in exchange for debt. (Reporting by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Paul Day and Dan Lalor)

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U.S. home prices fall, but rate slows: report

Aug 11, 2009 Make Money Online

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

Even so, stabilization of the hard-hit housing market, which is seen as key to an economic recovery in the United States, is not yet in view, with mounting foreclosures and a high level of “underwater” mortgages still posing threats, Zillow said.

U.S. home values posted their 10th consecutive quarterly decline, falling to $186,500 on the Zillow Home Value Index, according to the second-quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

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Rent-to-own your home: Pro and con

Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online

It’s tough for buyers to find financing and hard for sellers to find buyers. A solution that can work well for both is renting with an option to buy.

With buyers scarce and financing tight, some home sellers are offering rent-to-buy options to potential buyers. In fact, there’s been enough of a spike in interest that ForSaleByOwner.com added it as a search option on the site, says spokesman Eric Mangan.

These deals, also called rent-to-own and lease-option, usually require buyers to pay extra rents each month plus up-front fees of about 5% of the purchase price. The regular rent then goes in owner’s pocket (presumably to pay the mortgage), but the additional payments are used to buy down the price of the home.

“Lease option agreements, if properly drafted, by and large are an effective way of enabling people to buy who are having trouble arranging financing or coming up with down payments,” said Lawrence Jacobson, a real estate attorney in Los Angeles.

The Advantages

Because the contract is typically written to close in 12 to 36 months, it gives buyers the chance to experience homes and neighborhoods without having to make major commitments.

But the biggest reasons buyers opt for rent-to-buy deals are to build up down payments and to improve their credit profiles so obtaining a mortgage is easier.

For example, if they buy a $200,000 home, paying $5,000 up-front and a rent premium of $400 a month on top of their $1,000 market rent, they’ll have $9,800 saved after one year and $19,400 after three.

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Home prices drop, but at a slower rate

Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online

S&P/Case-Shiller index down 18.1% year over year, but monthly drop narrows to 0.6% in April.

Home prices continued to tumble in April, falling 18.1% from a year earlier — but the month-over-month change in a closely watched real estate gauge narrowed sharply, indicating that housing markets may be starting to turn.

The 20-city slice of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index recorded a drop of 0.6% from March to April, compared with a 2.2% drop in the prior month. The index has declined every month since July 2006. The 10-city index fell 0.7%.

“The pace of decline in residential real estate slowed in April,” says David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Thirteen of the 20 metro areas also saw improvement in their annual return compared to that of March.”

Not only that but every metro area save one — Charlotte, N.C. — reported improvement in their monthly return compared with March.

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US Mortgage Applications Climb from 7-Month Low

Jun 28, 2009 Make Money Online

U.S. mortgage applications climbed last week from a seven-month low, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday, adding to emerging signs that the three-year housing market collapse may be abating.

Demand for home loans rose after four straight weekly declines, as U.S. mortgage rates dipped and more borrowers applied to buy houses as well as refinance.

The trade group’s seasonally adjusted mortgage applications index, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, rose 6.6 percent to 548.2 in the week ended June 19.

This modest rise is from the lowest level since late November.

“In terms of home sales and building activity, we’ve probably reached a bottom,” Keith Hembre, chief economist at First American Funds in Minneapolis, Minnesota said on Tuesday.

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Home Loans: Now You Can Find Out Who Owns Yours – Diana Olick

Jun 11, 2009 Make Money Online

By: Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter

You’ve probably never heard of it; I know I hadn’t until I read a New York Times article about it a few months ago, but think of it like that enormous warehouse you see at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where important artifacts and documents go to die.

Then think of your home mortgage as the lost ark. It’s called MERS, short for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, and it is the keeper of your loan. Nope, not your bank, lender, broker, investor, but Virginia-based MERS.

In order to save tons of cash on all the legal mumbo jumbo involved in documenting your loan and how it gets bought and sold and traded, lenders hire MERS, which is a private database, emphasize private. It is currently used by about 3,000 financial services firms.

Since MERS is the final resting place for loans, it is also the name on the foreclosure documents. As the foreclosure crisis deepens, savvy lawyers are helping borrowers avoid foreclosure by demanding to know who owns the loan in question. Judges want to know as well, but MERS wouldn’t or couldn’t say…until now.

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May US Foreclosures 3rd Highest Month on Record

Jun 11, 2009 Make Money Online

U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April’s record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama’s rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.

“There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that’s simply unprecedented,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

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