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NIMBY Response to McDonald’s in Brooklyn

Jonathan Dalton, Phoenix Real Estate Agent Curbed is one of my guilty pleasures, even if I’ve only been to New York once. The photographs are enjoyable and the commentary is equally as pleasing.

Take this post about reactions to McDonald’s coming to a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Protests against Wal-Mart are fairly common out here, but anger over a proposed McDonald’s franchise? Seriously?

Here’s the larger question that Curbed has caused me to ponder. Is a similar site close to feasible here in Phoenix? Is there enough going on? Will local readers care enough to send in breaking news or neighborhood tidbits? Because that’s the only way such an effort is going to succeed - with help from the readers.

The rest of us only can be in so many places at once.

Technorati Tags: Curbed, Phoenix real estate

Popularity: 6% [?]

Nevada Law All But Eliminates Stated Income Loans

Jonathan Dalton, Phoenix Real Estate Agent Nevada’s new law regarding unfair lending practices doesn’t take effect for another two weeks but changes already are underway in how lenders in that state are handling stated income loans.

Under Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 598D …

      NRS 598D.100 Unfair lending practices.

      1. It is an unfair lending practice for a lender to:

      (a) Require a borrower, as a condition of obtaining or maintaining a home loan secured by home property, to provide property insurance on improvements to home property in an amount that exceeds the reasonable replacement value of the improvements.

      (b) Knowingly or intentionally make a home loan to a borrower based solely upon the equity of the borrower in the home property and without determining that the borrower has the ability to repay the home loan from other assets, including, without limitation, income.

      (c) Finance a prepayment fee or penalty in connection with the refinancing by the original borrower of a home loan owned by the lender or an affiliate of the lender.

      (d) Finance, directly or indirectly in connection with a home loan, any credit insurance.

      2. As used in this section:

      (a) “Credit insurance” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 690A.015.

      (b) “Prepayment fee or penalty” means any fee or penalty imposed by a lender if a borrower repays the balance of a loan or otherwise makes a payment on a loan before the regularly scheduled time for repayment.

      (Added to NRS by 2003, 2890)

The emphasis added is my own, as this is the provision which all but is eliminating stated income loans as a possibility in the Silver State. In talking to one local loan officer whose company has offices in Nevada, it had become common for borrowers to claim they were working at one of the casinos even when they weren’t.

Lenders would try to verify the information but weren’t always successful (employers aren’t particularly helpful - when I was at Schwab, anyone asking about a current or former employee was forwarded to corporate Human Relations in San Francisco.)

The change isn’t at all a bad thing. Stated income loans should be based in reality and not be used as a court of last resort. And note that the law doesn’t make them illegal, merely impractical as a risk for many lenders.

Technorati Tags: real estate financing, Las Vegas real estate

Popularity: 7% [?]

Phoenix Real Estate’s Disappearing DOM: It’s a Start

Jonathan Dalton, Phoenix Real Estate Agent As I perusing the listings this morning in the Arizona Regional MLS, I instinctively scrolled to the bottom of the page to see how long one home at been on the market - not as a hammer to be used by a buyer, but to help a seller understand the state of the market.

Lo and behold, the Days on Market no longer were there.

Phoenix MLS

I’ve long argued against including Days on Market on MLS reports because, at its heart, the MLS is a sellers’ tool. Sellers hire us to market their homes and the MLS is the most efficient vehicle for such advertising, since there’s an attached offer of compensation for any agent bringing a buyer who successfully closes escrow.

Attaching a misunderstood number such as Days on Market (Why is the number so high? Is it price? Lack of motivation? Lack of marketing? Lack of buyers? Does it have anything at all to do with the house) is detrimental to the sellers and impacts listing agents trying to sell homes on behalf of their clients.

Unfortunately, we’ve trained buyers to ask about Days on Market and hold this number in such high esteem that you’d believe Moses himself at delivered it from Mt. Sinai. So any change in the presentation is considered major.

Removing Days on Market from the primary agent report is a decent first step. It’s a start and likely will be the end, though I hope not.

For those agents who still want the number, a second report is available that includes the days on market. And for those agents who really want the best idea of what’s happened with a particular property, the one-time archive report now can be included at the bottom of the property listing.

Of course, few agents know the archive report existed. Fewer will probably take the time to select anything other than the default report, especially the newbies who, from what the folks at SUPRA said this morning, continue to rush into the industry for reasons only they can understand.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, MLS, days on market

Popularity: 11% [?]