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HomeRun Homes is a centralized marketplace which helps people Find or Sell a Rent to Own Home, both Nationwide and Globally to the thriving Rent to Own Market. http://www.lease2buy.com
Showing posts with label rental properties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rental properties. Show all posts

December 5, 2011

Property Managers Thrive as Rentals Soar

Hi Folks,

   Hope you all had a great weekend, whether you were doing Holiday shopping or anything else to relax this past weekend.

   For quite some time, many honest and hard working Property Managers were being grouped into the same category as some bad apples in their field. However, since people are having difficulties purchasing homes due to mortgage rules, etc, rentals are soaring, and in conjunction, Property Managers are flourishing.

   If you are not sure of what the functions of a Rental Property Manager are, they "handle such tasks as screening tenants, helping landlords set rents, resolving disputes and ensuring lawns get mowed. They charge homeowners about 8 percent to 14 percent of the monthly rent, depending on the manager and city", as told by Hui-yong Yu on businessweek.com.

   Time for some hard facts from Yu in the article, "Once ‘Ugly’ Property Management Grows as U.S. Home Rentals Surge", Renter household formation "surpassed new owner-occupied homes in 2007 for the first time since 1985 and has held the lead since", per the U.S. Census Bureau data". Additionally, U.S. apartment vacancies fell to a five-year low in the third quarter, according to Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate research company. Supply and Demand - less vacancies means less apartments available, and thus, higher rents. Diane Castanes, a partner at Phillips Real Estate Services in Seattle, mentioned that “When rents go up, that gives people enough cash flow to hire professional management,”

   “There has been a dramatic shift toward renting,” Chris Herbert, research director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and as Yu said, services for rental properties are thriving "following a surge in foreclosures and stiffening of mortgage standards". This led to an explosion in membership in the National Association of Residential Property Managers over the past five years, according to the Chesapeake, Virginia-based trade group".

   This is where this story becomes extremely interesting.

   "Property management may have a role to play in fixing the housing crisis", said Reggie Brown, chief executive officer of All Property Management LLC, a Seattle-based Web service, in a segment of Yu's article. A few months back, the FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was looking for ideas on "handling foreclosed homes held by the government", to the tune of about 248,000 as of June.

   Brown "filed a suggestion with the FHFA that the homes be put up for rent with property managers hired to oversee them", which was a fantastic idea. "What’s going to change is the percentage of U.S. households that are rental versus owner-occupied,” he said. “It’s now almost 40 percent, but that number is definitely going to grow.”

   From our standpoint, this is a great idea on many levels. With the proposal from Brown, coupled with our proposal to Rent to Own these homes (to generate immediate revenue), I definitely feel this would make a large impact on the Housing Market.

What are your thoughts on this?

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #PropertyManager #rentalproperties #foreclosures #RenttoOwn #screeningtenants #homeowners #owneroccupiedhomes #apartmentvacancies #FHFA #Rentals #mortgagerules

April 27, 2011

Confusion Stemming From New Residential Sales Figures

Good Morning,

   Happy mid-week to everyone.

   This past Monday, the figures were released for New Residential Sales for March, and the numbers showed us better than an 11% surge from February, but almost a 22% drop from March of 2010.

   Do these numbers confuse you? If so, you're not alone.

   Katie Severance of RE/MAX Village Square, thinks that the sales figures are, "confusing to both buyers and sellers who are trying to gauge where the market is.". She adds that, "on the one hand, they reflect that home prices have continued to fall. But, on the other hand, they show that the "pace' of home sales is actually up."

   Severance says that, "What they actually reflect are two things", which she says, "All sales figures are spotty depending on the region. Whether numbers are slightly up or down, we continue to "skip along the bottom and if we are not yet at the bottom, we're not too far off." The second item piece is that, as she says, "The pace of sales are up because sellers are pricing more realistically and motivated buyers know that mortgage interest rates will climb and that waiting for prices to fall lower may just offset the rise in interest rates - making the timing of their purchase a 'wash'. If they wait too long, interest rates will climb high enough where - at a certain point - they can actually afford less house than they can today."

   "While the increase in March, from February, is nice, it is still well below last year", says L Lane Bailey of Diamond Dwellings Realty, and adds that, "Last year was somewhat of a bump because of tax incentives in the market, but the real bump in closed sales wasn't until closer to the May/June time frame last year. Before we can call an end to the housing slump, we need to see a few months of strong sales strung together."

   Bailey says that their market area, which is Gwinnett County, Georgia, is, "seeing some pockets and price ranges that are reasonably strong, but others are still lagging." Bailey says that, "Luxury housing is still quite weak, with most of the sales prices considerably lower than a couple of years ago, and down 25% from what they might have fetched even a year ago."

   Alexis A. Moore, Vice President of Town Center Realty Group, says that, "Borrowers still find it difficult to obtain loans and sellers are still faced with difficult times when selling their homes. Those of us in the real estate industry know that working in this climate and closing a deal is no piece of cake", and adds that, ""The market is still very soft at least here in Northern California"

   "With the low rates, first time home-buyers can have a heyday in the market. Investors are also snapping up rental properties at very favorable prices. Some homes are selling at a 40% discount compared to recent tax appraisals.", says Bailey. Moore says that, "Any positive change is a good one and I always try to stay positive finding new ways to work with my buyers and sellers."

   What are your thoughts on the New Residential Sales figures?

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com