Five years and 16 million foreclosures after the 2008 housing crash, most Americans HAVE NOT lost faith in real estate. In fact, a survey this summer of more than 2,000 adults by home buyer website Trulia found 61 percent of respondents predicted that the Real Estate prices in their local market would rise next in 2013.  58 percent thought prices would take 10 years or less to get back to their pre-crash peak and almost 80 percent of current renters said they plan to buy a home someday… Safe to say, the market most likely won’t be bleak for all that long!

Whether or not that enthusiasm has merit, the signs of a turnaround are hard to ignore. National home prices have been on the up-and-up for eight straight months and have jumped 6.3 percent year-over-year in October – the largest increase since June 2006, according to CoreLogic.

But regardless of what other Real Estate authorities believe; I feel obligated to share my top 5 trends and predictions for the calendar year 2013 for all things residential Real Estate:

1. Home Prices Will Remain On The Rise – The slow pace of new-home construction is pushing prices up. Calvin Schnure, an economist at the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, says construction of new homes and apartments needs to be between 1.25 and 1.5 million a year just to keep up with population growth.  But since “the crash”, new construction has been at 500,000 units or fewer for 6 years running—thus creating a shortfall in available homes.

2. Landlords Will Continue Raising Rent –  Schnure says there’s a shadow demand in the rental market—the 3 to 5 million people, most in their twenties and thirties, who have been riding out the shaky economy by moving back in with their parents or staying with friends.  For next year, “that means that for people looking to rent, good luck… it’s going to be a challenge,” he says.

3. Fewer Bargains In The Foreclosure Market – Your chance to snap up a bargain-basement foreclosure could be fading fast (for the dwindling numbers of folks looking to do so). In fact, sales of forclosed homes fell to about 11 percent of all sales in June 2012, down from about 28 percent in March 2011.

In part that’s because the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and banks have been selling off hundreds of distressed home loans in bulk to purchasers who agree to work out new terms with borrowers rather than simply foreclosing, says Philip Feder, chair of real estate practice at global law firm Paul Hastings.

In my business, I personally assisted dozens of buyers and sellers negotiate win/win scenarios for their property.  In 2013, I’m eager to assist dozens more find an ‘ideal’ fit for their new home.  To that point, if you’re looking to list your home this year, I’d like to offer you an opportunity to maximize my no-obligation market analysis — I’ll earn you thousands more at the closing table.

4. More first-time home buyers. A report from consulting firm Deloitte & Touche on key issues in commercial real estate for 2013 predicts that growth in demand for single-family homes next year will likely be driven by first-time home buyers.

In case you may not have known, working with first time homebuyers is an area that I find tremendous fulfillment.  In fact, in 2012, many of my 22 sales were from working with first-timers… If you’d like, take a look at what many of them had to say about Medea’s Homes
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5. Easier credit standards. On average, would-be borrowers now need a FICO credit score in the 760s to get a mortgage, much higher even than the years before the easy-credit housing boom began, according to the FHFA. That should start changing next year–qualifying scores will start dropping as more qualified buyers come into the market and lenders compete to offer them loans, says Luis Vergara of Mission Capital Advisors in New York City.

“This downward shift in standards will be strengthened if the Obama administration, as has been rumored, replaces FHFA head Ed DeMarco, a Bush-era holdover and advocate of tight credit standards”, says Richard Green, head of the University of Southern California’s Lusk Center for Real Estate.

In summary: political certainly, a projected “boom” in the first time home-buyer market, a drop in the foreclosure forecast, renters being on the lookout to own and a rise in home prices will surely see the calendar year 2013 as awfully promising for those in the market to make their home searching and selling matter more pleasurable.

To relentlessly focusing on the best deal for you in 2013,

Greater Boston Real Estate Authority
(617) 775 – 9167 | Click To Email Me