Price Improved - 2081 N Pebble Beach Drive, Casa Grande, AZ

Price Improved!!!  Now only $259,700

2081 N Pebble Beach Drive, Casa Grande, AZ

 Must see - call today (520) 836-6325

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Mortgage Rates Continue Record-Breaking Streak

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, July 27, 2012

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage -- the most popular choice among home buyers -- is now a full percentage point lower than a year ago, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey. Fixed-rate mortgages have been on a record-breaking streak the last few weeks, pushing home affordability even higher.
"Market concerns over the strength of the economic recovery brought long-term Treasury yields to new lows this week allowing fixed mortgage rates to reach record levels,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Here’s a closer look at rates for the week ending July 26:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged a new low of 3.49 percent, with an average 0.7 point, beating last week’s previous record of 3.53 percent. A year ago, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.55 percent. 
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged a new record low of 2.80 percent, with an average 0.7 point, dropping from last week’s previous record-low of 2.83 percent.Last year at this time, 15-year rates averaged 3.66 percent. 
• 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.74 percent, with an average 0.6 point, rising from last week’s record low of 2.69 percent. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.25 percent.
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.71 percent, with an average 0.5 point, also rising from last week’s 2.69 percent average. A year ago, 1-year ARMs averaged 2.95 percent.  

Source: Freddie Mac

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Home Prices Perk Up

Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, July 26, 2012

For the last 12 months ending in May, U.S. home prices have increased 3.7 percent, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s latest House Price Index. Home prices increased 0.8 percent from April to May on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the index, which uses purchase prices of houses with mortgages that have been sold or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

While prices are picking up, they still may have a long way to go in some markets. Home prices are about 17 percent below the peak reached in April 2007, according to the FHFA index. Prices are at about the same level they were at in May 2004, according to the index.

Still, other industry reports out recently are also showing an increasing in home prices.
The National Association of REALTORS® recently reported that median existing-home prices were up 7.9 percent in June from a year ago. In fact, existing-home prices in June posted their strongest gain since February 2006 and for the last four consecutive months have posted increases. NAR attributed most of the price gains to the fact that there were fewer distressed homes for sale in June.

Source: Federal Housing Finance Agency and “June Existing-Home Prices Rise Again,” REALTOR® Magazine Daily News (July 19, 2012)

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros

Casa Grande Home of the Week - 2081 Pebble Beach Drive, Casa Grande, AZ

Gorgeous 3 Bedroom Home with Pool on the Lake!!!

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Mortgage Rates: The Record That Keeps on Breaking

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, July 20, 2012

The streak continues with average 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages taking yet another dip into record territory this week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey.
"With little signs of inflation and the Federal Reserve's ‘Operation Twist’ keeping U.S. Treasury bond yields in check, fixed mortgage rates are remaining low and helping to stir the housing market,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
According to Freddie Mac, fixed mortgage rates will likely remain at — or near — their all-time lows in the near future. The low rates will fuel “housing demand with a continued pick-up in housing starts, home sales, and even house prices in many markets,” according to Freddie Mac’s July U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook.
Here’s a closer look at mortgage rates for the week ending July 19:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged a new record low of 3.53 percent this week, with an average 0.7 point, dropping from last week’s previous record low of 3.56 percent. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has averaged below 4 percent for every week this year except for one. A year ago at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.52 percent.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged a new record low of 2.83 percent this week, with an average 0.6 point, down from last week’s previous all-time low of 2.86 percent. For eight consecutive weeks, 15-year mortgages have been below 3 percent. Last year at this time, 15-year mortgages averaged 3.66 percent. 
• 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged a new record as well this week at 2.69 percent, with an average 0.6 point, dropping from last week’s 2.74 percent average. Last year at this time, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.27 percent. 
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.69 percent, with an average 0.4 point, holding steady from last week’s average. A year ago, 1-year ARMs averaged 2.97 percent. 

Source: Freddie Mac

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Archives > Casa Grande Dispatch > Around Arizona

Setting pace for recovery

Phoenix leads way as real estate begins to rebound

By WHITNEY PHILLIPSAssociated Press

Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 9:30 AM MST

PHOENIX — The Phoenix metro housing market is seeing a rise in home prices and a decline in the number of houses on the market, putting the area ahead of most other U.S. cities on the road to recovery, according to real estate experts.

Economists say the upward trend in the Phoenix area may serve as a beacon of hope for other cities across the nation that suffered when the housing bubble burst.

“The Phoenix market will be a benchmark city to monitor for residents in Las Vegas, the Inland Empire of California and ... the Florida market,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors.

The median price for Phoenix-area homes in May was about 30 percent higher than it was the same time last year, according to a monthly report released by the W. P. Carey School of Business’s Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University. The report also shows there are about half as many houses on the market as there were the same time last year.

The Phoenix area market was one of the hardest hit in the nation in terms of distressed properties, but the state’s foreclosure system allows it to work through the backlog more quickly than states in which foreclosures have to go through the judicial process. Banks and mortgage companies have the power in Arizona to foreclose homes without a judge’s approval.

Nevada’s foreclosure system is largely the same. Nasser Daneshvary, director of University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies, said speedy foreclosures are healthy for the market. Too many foreclosures can sink home prices, as happened in both Phoenix and Las Vegas, but Daneshvary said a return to the depths experienced during the housing collapse isn’t likely in either city.

Arizona’s job market, with an unemployment rate that’s down to 8.2 percent from its March 2010 peak of 10.8 percent, is also a factor in real estate improvements. Yun said other areas that have sluggish job markets are likely to see slower real estate recoveries, with fewer people able to buy homes.

Michael Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at ASU’s Carey school, said dwindling housing inventory, coupled with prices that are still relatively low, means sellers now hold the power in the Phoenix-area market, and receive multiple offers, many of which come from investors who are looking to buy and rent out houses.

“Now we’ve got too few homes. Everybody’s wishing the investors would go away and stop buying, but the investors are still here buying everything they can with cash, which makes it pretty difficult for ordinary home buyers to compete,” Orr said.

Sandy and Luis Solis said they found that to be true. The couple, who moved from Los Angeles to Scottsdale last year, said the rapid decline in homes available in their price range made them feel hurried to buy. They made offers on three homes but were outbid by cash offers twice, the second time by an investor. They’re in the final stages of closing on a house in Phoenix.

“We were kind of losing hope that we were going to find the right home for us,” Sandy Solis said.

Las Vegas and some cities in California are seeing similar situations. Daneshvary said investors who buy housing for the purpose of renting are better for the market than others in the past who have purchased houses just to flip them. He said by the time investors stop buying, the market will be healthy enough to remain stable.

With houses in short supply, the construction industry will step in to fill the void. Orr said home building in the Phoenix area is slowly beginning to pick up, but it will likely be stifled by a shortage of construction workers in the state. He said Arizona has lost “80 to 90 percent of that skilled workforce” in the last six or seven years because workers have gone elsewhere or left the industry altogether.

Orr said the Phoenix-area’s home market recovery will likely level out over the next few months.

“I just don’t want people to think the next quarter is going to accelerate at the same rate,” Orr said. “That’s not likely to happen.”

That, Yun said, is a sign that the market will recover in a more healthy way.

In the long term, some city’s housing markets may end up in better shape than they were before the housing market crash. Yun said parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas didn’t experience huge housing market losses but are benefiting from widespread improvements in economies.

Casa Grande Home of the Week - 2434 E Firerock Drive, Mission Royale, Casa Grande, AZ

Golf Anyone? 

This 2 BR 2 BA + a den home sitting on the Golf Course in the popular Mission Royale 55+ Community, is exactly what you have been looking for. 20'' diagonal tile, carpet in BRs, new heat pump, epoxy paint on the patio, garage and entrance, silhouette shades, front security door, 4 ceiling fans, new garbage disposal, new heavy gauge stainless steel kitchen sink, water softener with extra soft water hose bib to wash your car, R-38 in the attic, and the list goes on. Call to see today.

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Mortgage Rates Dip Into New Territory

Mortgage Rates Dip Into New Territory

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, July 06, 2012 

Mortgage rates continue to set new record lows, pushing home buyer affordability a little higher each week.
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the most popular option for home buyers, has matched or reached new record lows in 10 of the last 11 weeks, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey.
This week, "recent economic data releases of less consumer spending and a contraction in the manufacturing industry drove long-term Treasury bond yields lower over the week and allowed fixed mortgage rates to hit new all-time record lows,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Here’s a closer look at rates for the week ending July 5:

• 3o-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged a new record low of 3.62 percent, with an average 0.8 point, beating out its previous all-time record low last week of 3.66 percent. A year ago at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.60 percent. 
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.89 percent, with an average 0.7 point, also beating out its previous record set last week of 2.94 percent. Last year at this time, 15-year rates averaged 3.75 percent. 
• 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.79 percent, with an average 0.6 point, matching last week’s average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.30 percent. 
• 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.68 percent, with an average 0.5 point, also posting a new record low this week. A year ago at this time, 1-year ARMs averaged 3.01 percent. 

Source: Freddie Mac

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Five A/C Operating Tips That Help Control Energy Costs

Summertime means high energy bills for many homeowners. If you’re concerned about increased cooling costs, consider these five simple A/C operating tips to keep your bills manageable this summer:

• Change air filters regularly: The filters in your system help keep your air clean, but they are also important for efficiency. Your A/C has to work harder to blow air through a dirty filter and you can reduce cooling costs by changing your filter whenever it gets dirty. During the summer, this typically means providing a fresh filter every one to three months.
• Use your thermostat wisely: Every degree higher you set your thermostat saves you money, so you should try to keep the setting as high as you can without sacrificing comfort. A good way to do this is with a programmable thermostat, which automatically adjusts your air conditioner use based on your daily routine. For example, you can keep cool while you’re home in the morning and evening but maintain a higher temperature while you’re at work or asleep.
• Cool off with fans: A fan can’t completely replace the air conditioner in most homes, but it can significantly reduce the burden on your A/C unit. The average ceiling fan uses less electricity than a light bulb and creates a cooling breeze that allows you to cut costs by running your air conditioner less.
• Keep the heat out: The less heat you allow into your home, the easier it is for your air conditioner to keep you cool. You can accomplish this by providing shade for windows and glass doors, using ovens and stoves only on cool mornings and evenings, and replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents, which produce less heat and use less energy.
• Schedule annual maintenance: An annual service call for your air conditioner can boost efficiency, trims cooling costs and lengthens the lifespan of your HVAC system. The best time for maintenance is in the spring before the cooling season gets under way.

Elite Real Estate Pros

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com

Happy 4th of July from Elite Real Estate Pros!

Casa Grande Home of the Week - New Listing - 2461 E Fiesta Drive, Mission Royale, Casa Grande, AZ

Graceful Elegance!

Neal Buckner, Broker/Owner, REALTOR®, CDPE

(520) 280-2766

Email: info@eliterealestatepros.com