The $8,000 Home-Buyer Tax Credit Has Been Extended & Expanded

Earlier today, President Obama signed new legislation extending the deadline for the home buyer tax credit into 2010 and expanding it to include current home owners who are looking to buy a primary residence.

The Basic Requirements

You qualify for the tax credit if the:

• Home you’re buying will be your primary residence
• Purchase price isn’t more than $800,000

This credit is not a loan; it’s yours, but keep in mind you have to live in your new home for three years. If you sell the home in less than three years, you’ll have to pay back the money.

What’s Changed?

With the new legislation, buyers have more time to find a home and more buyers are eligible for the tax credit:

• New deadline: To qualify, you need to be in contract with a seller by April 30th & close on the home by June 30th (The previous deadline was November 30, 2009).
• Not just for first-time buyers anymore: Home buyers who’ve owned and occupied a home for at least five consecutive years during the past eight years are eligible for a credit up to $6,500.
• Increased income limits: Individuals making less than $125,000 and couples making less than $225,000 are eligible (The limits used to be $75K & $150K).

First-time buyers are eligible for a credit up to $8,000 on homes purchased between January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010. Qualified homeowners can a credit up to $6,500 on homes purchased between November 7, 2009 and June 30, 2010.

Bonus Link

You can check out the full text of the bill. Scroll about halfway down to sections 11 & 12:

• Sec. 11. Extension and Modification of First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.
• Sec. 12. Provisions to Enhance the Administration of the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.

Market Wrap Up for September

Let’s take at look at the September numbers for single-family homes and condominiums and see how they compare to a year ago.

Middlesex County

• 1,193 homes sold, up from 1,088 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $349,200, up from $339,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 101 days, down from 114 days in September 2008.

Suffolk County

• 446 homes sold, up slightly from 445 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $331,750, up from $330,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 102 days, down from 107 days in September 2008.

Norfolk County

• 555 homes sold, up from 501 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $335,000, down from $337,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 106 days, down from 122 days in September 2008.

Plymouth County

• 395 homes sold, up from 373 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $272,400, down from $285,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 128 days, down from 168 days in September 2008.

Bristol County

• 304 homes sold, up slightly from 302 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $225,000, down from $249,063 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 146 days, down from 162 days in September 2008.

Essex County

• 554 homes sold, up from 503 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $281,000, up slightly from $280,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 128 days, down from 150 days in September 2008.

Worcester County

• 631 homes sold, up from 559 in September 2008
• The median sales price was $207,050, down from $215,000 in September 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 138 days, down from 158 days in September 2008.

We pulled these numbers from MLSPIN.

Dig Deeper Into the Trends

To see what’s happening in your neighborhood, check out our stats & trends pages.

Case-Shiller: Summer Surge Benefits Low Tier Most

It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). Starting this month, we will be basing all of the charts in this series of posts on the seasonally-adjusted data provided by S&P. For the full source data behind this post, plus non-seasonally adjusted and tiered price data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – August data is released in October).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Boston area* as of August:

Sixteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw an increase in their respective seasonally-adjusted HPIs between July and August. Only Cleveland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Seattle marked seasonally-adjusted drops month-to-month.

Here’s a look at Boston’s latest tiered data, back through 2000:

From the looks of the Case-Shiller tiered data, I’d say that the low tier seems to be benefiting the most from the summer spike. Given that much of the bounce has been attributed to the $8,000 tax credit available only to first-time buyers, that is not surprising.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

Here’s the flip side of the peak decline chart, here’s a chart of just this year, indexed to January = 100%:

According to a Reuters story from earlier today, Robert Shiller has described the sudden spike seen in many markets this summer as potential “bubble territory.” I agree. As I have discussed on these pages in recent months, the sudden and simultaneous nature of this price uptick does not bear any marks of a return to fundamentals, but instead seems to be driven almost entirely by a mad dash for cheap loans (interest rates in the 5s) and free money ($8k tax credit).

I’m a little bit concerned that by interrupting the natural correction of the housing market, recent government intervention is setting us up for even more pain down the road. I hope I am wrong.

*[Case-Shiller defines Boston as the entire Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all or part of the following counties: Essex MA, Middlesex MA, Norfolk MA, Plymouth MA, Suffolk MA, Rockingham NH, and Strafford NH.]

B of A Tops Middlesex County Lending

Mortgage Data Web sent us over some interesting numbers on lending activity in Middlesex County for January 2009 through July 2009. Note that these numbers include both purchases and re-fi’s:

If you’re looking for a lender check out our recommended list of lenders.

Two of the Top Six Buyers’ Agents Work at Redfin

September was another great month for our greater Boston agents! Of the 3,500+ buyers’ agents who closed a deal in September, we have two in the top six:

When you work with Redfin, you work with some of the best agents in the greater Boston area. Sean, Adam and Hannah know what’s going on in the market right now because they spend all of their time serving clients: touring homes, writing offers and closing deals.

We pulled these numbers from MLSPIN, the database for real estate transactions and listings for Massachusetts, and ranked agents who represented home-buyers of single-family homes, condominiums and multi-family buildings in August based first on number of deals, then by total dollar amount.

Our Clients Love Our Service

We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in September from our clients in the greater Boston area:

• 25 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, down from 39 in August.
• 23 of those clients, or 92%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, down from 100% in August.

In these surveys, Redfin asks customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.

Where Were the Biggest Discounts in August?

Let’s check in on our stats to find out where buyers are currently getting the biggest discounts off asking price. If you are a potential buyer, this will help you to know which neighborhoods may be softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the charts below, we have taken all sales data from last month in the greater Boston area and sorted it by city.

Methodology
In order to maintain consistency with the automatically generated statistics posted to the Redfin neighborhood pages, we have slightly tweaked the way the statistics are compiled for this post series. First, we complied a list of every sale that took place in the month, calculating each sale’s sale-to-list ratio (based on the final list price). Next, we simply take an average of every individual sale’s sale-to-list ratio to calculate an entire area’s sale-to-list ratio. Any sales that came in with a sale-to-list ratio above 150% or below 50% are excluded from the calculation, and areas with fewer than twenty sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings. Interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

Here are the top ten areas with the largest overall discount:

The overall discount rate was lower than our last update, but since we tweaked the methodology slightly, unfortunately they’re not really comparable.

Here are the ten areas with the smallest discounts:

In the 94 areas we ranked, the median discount was 3.43%.

Is the area you’re shopping not on either the top 10 or bottom 10? No problem, just download the full rankings in Excel format and hit the “FullSummary” sheet.

Of the 5,752 sales we tracked in the 1-month period, 1,756 homes sold for 5% or more off the asking price, while 172 homes sold for 5% or more above the asking price.

Case-Shiller: Simultaneous Summer Surge Stretches On

It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). For the full source data behind this post, plus seasonally adjusted and tiered price data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – July data is released in September).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Boston area* as of July:

Seventeen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw an increase in their respective seasonally-adjusted HPIs between June and July. Only Las Vegas, Seattle, and Detroit continued to mark seasonally-adjusted drops month-to-month.

Here in Boston, a summer bump in home prices has been part of the routine all the way down since the peak in late 2005. However, this year’s summer spike is much sharper, and would seem to be the result of external forces rather than the natural movement of the market.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

I suppose this summer could be called the summer of the sudden surge or the summer of the massive desperate government intervention. Either way, the result has been increasing prices in most markets over the past few months. Potentially good news if you’re trying to sell your house, but not especially encouraging if you’re hoping to buy, but prices had not yet come down quite into your reasonable range yet. Whether the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit expires or not, I think this winter will be interesting.

Here’s the flip side of the peak decline chart, the Great Summer Bounce of Aught-Nine:

It’s the best recovery that $700 billion plus $787 billion can buy!

*[Case-Shiller defines Boston as the entire Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all or part of the following counties: Essex MA, Middlesex MA, Norfolk MA, Plymouth MA, Suffolk MA, Rockingham NH, and Strafford NH.]

September City/Neighborhood Price Reductions

It’s been a while since we had a look at which cities and towns have the most price reductions.

The following charts show the percent of MLS, FSBO or REO listings that were price-reduced at some point before leaving the market (either sold or removed unsold from the market) in the past 90 days. Cities/towns or neighborhoods in which the number of homes taken off the market was too small to provide believable estimates are excluded from ranking.

For those that are interested, I have uploaded the full data set in Excel format here. The downloadable Excel file also includes charts showing the top ten cities/towns/neighborhoods with the least reduced-price listings.

First up are the top ten cities with the most price-reduced listings:

Of the 101 cities/towns we ranked in the Boston area this month, 40 had price-reduced ratios of fifty percent or more. The median price-reduced ratio was 47.1%.

Getting a little more granular, let’s look at the top ten neighborhoods for price reductions:

Of the 26 neighborhoods we ranked this month, 10 had a price-reduced ratio of fifty percent or more. The median price-reduced ratio was 48.6%.

Download the full spreadsheet to check where your neighborhood came in.

The Market Wrap-Up For August

Let’s take at look at the August numbers for eastern Massachusetts and see how they compare to a year ago.

Single-Family Homes, Condos & Multi-Family Properties

• 4,667 homes sold, down from 4,718 in August 2008
• The median sales price was $328,000, down from $335,000 in August 2008
• Homes that sold were on the market an average of 116 days, down from 121 days in August 2008.

We pulled these numbers from MLSPIN.

Dig Deeper Into the Trends

These numbers are for eastern Massachusetts. To see what’s happening in your neighborhood, check out our stats & trends pages.

What did you see in August?

37% Of Offers Are On Homes With Multiple Offers

In August, our Boston-area agents presented 46 bids on homes for sale and 17 of them, or 37%, were on homes with at least one other offer.

Many of these competitive situations are in popular communities like Belmont, Arlington and Cambridge. Redfin agent Adam Welling has seen lot of multiple offer situations in Somerville:

Right now, buyers are pouncing on well-priced homes in a good areas. In Davis Square, we’re seeing a lot nice condos in 2-3 unit buildings get 10+ offers and go under contract quickly.

3 Tips For Buyers

Hannah Driscoll, the #1 buyers’ agent in eastern Massachusetts in August, has three tips for buyers:

1. Determine your maximum price: Know how high you can go before you bid so you don’t have to figure this out during negotiations
2. Know what’s for sale: Be ready to make an offer as soon as you see something you like
3. Lead with your best offer: Try to put least 20% down and have a quick closing period

In the last two days, Hannah has presented three offers on single-family homes with multiple bids:

• Belmont house listed around $450,000 had five offers, four of which are over the list price
• Cambridge house listed around $700,000 had three offers, all over the list price
• Newton house listed around $770,00 had three offers

For more numbers, download the spreadsheet with the data on what happened in August.

Where are you seeing homes with multiple offers?