Happy National Humor Month! Whether you love or hate April Fools’ Day, there are plenty of reasons to laugh and feel optimistic this month as we continue through another beautiful West Virginia spring. Our state is a leader when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations. Normal life seems right around the corner.
When it comes to real estate specifically, inventory is still low (and now generating attention-grabbing headlines outside of the industry, even though we’ve been dealing with these issues for months now.) However, people from all over are feeling confident, and your West Virginia Bankers Title team expects the housing frenzy to continue, even if interest rates slowly tick up.
We thank you for continuing to rely on us to provide the best title insurance products in the state and always trusting us to do great work, no matter how busy you get. Whether it’s a new transaction or you still have customers wanting to get in on the refinance game before it’s too late, West Virginia Bankers Title is here for you.
Bob Drummond, Vice President/Agency Manager of West Virginia Bankers Title
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Introducing our newest team member! |
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We would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest team member and Title Underwriter, Tammy Smith! Tammy is from Sugar Grove, West Virginia, has been married for 29 years to her high school sweetheart and has 3 boys. She lives on a family farm raising sheep and cattle. She loves to turkey hunt and has completed the Grand Slam. Having worked in the legal field for the past 20 years, Tammy is very excited to have joined the West Virginia Banker’s Title team! Help us to welcome her by shooting a quick "hello" to tsmith@titlesinsured.com. |
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Changes Loom for a Post-Pandemic Housing Market |
Speaking of looking ahead, this article about what Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather believes will happen in the post-pandemic housing market caught our eye. In her report, Fairweather analyzes five trends the market will see and how the industry will deal with the pandemic’s fallout nationwide. You’ll probably be thrilled to see the second thing on the list. Here is a direct link to her forecast, and she mentions that Redfin predicts that the coming year will bring a 10% increase in new listings.
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A fixer-upper in DC received 76 all-cash offers and sold for $200,000 over the asking price |
This listing is one of the recent stories that got picked up by multiple media outlets to show how competitive the housing market is right now. It centers on a fixer-upper in the Washington DC area that received 88 offers in four days. Of those, 76 offers were all-cash and 15 were made sight unseen. The numbers are high and worthy of attention but we all certainly know how hot the market has been.
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A fixer-upper in DC received 76 all-cash offers and sold for $200,000 over the asking price |
This listing is one of the recent stories that got picked up by multiple media outlets to show how competitive the housing market is right now. It centers on a fixer-upper in the Washington DC area that received 88 offers in four days. Of those, 76 offers were all-cash and 15 were made sight unseen. The numbers are high and worthy of attention but we all certainly know how hot the market has been.
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With Prices Surging, Farmland Is Now a Hot Commodity |
It’s not just residential real estate that’s in high demand right now. Across the Midwest, farmland prices are rapidly climbing, fueled by a recent rally in grain markets and low-interest rates, The Wall Street Journal reports in a subscription-required story. Prices are rising even higher than the previous farm boom about a decade ago. Farmland prices are expected to continue to increase this year. A recent survey of Iowa farmland specialists conducted by the Iowa chapter of the REALTORS® Land Institute shows average farmland values were up nearly 8% since September.
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The last year has certainly taught us how important it is to be flexible, so we can adapt to whatever our customers need, but many of the changes you’ve seen companies of all kinds implement during the last year are here to stay. Check out this interview with Diane Tomb, the CEO of the American Land Title Association (ALTA), on what technology and trends are staying and becoming part of the customer expectation when it comes to title insurance products and real estate closings.
Tomb also used her time with Bankrate to talk about how the issue of wire fraud has increased “significantly” during the last year as opportune criminals use the pandemic as a new way to cook up old scams to target the money involved in a real estate transaction.
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The CPFB has proposed putting off most foreclosures until 2022.
The proposal, which would need final approval, generally prohibits mortgage servicers from initiating foreclosure proceedings against delinquent borrowers until after Dec. 31. The rule would apply to all mortgages, both federal and private, on a principal residence, CFPB officials said earlier this month.
According to this article from CNBC, the loans that were placed in the forbearance program early in the pandemic will reach the end of their forbearance period in September or October, the CFPB said. It is believed that as many as 1.7 million borrowers could be at risk of foreclosure at that time. A couple of days before this announcement, the CFPB issued a statement telling mortgage servicers being unprepared to deal with an expectant surge in homeowners needing assistance was unacceptable.
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In honor of spring and the year we’ve all had, the West Virginia Bankers Title team wanted to talk about spring cleaning in another way. Decluttering so you can make yourself more productive, whether you’re still working remotely or you’ve just returned to the office. We were inspired by this recent Inman article (subscription required, though this Forbes piece from last year hits on similar points.)
The bottom line when it comes to your job, spring cleaning not only means physically throwing things away, but also re-focusing and organizing everything from office files, to your email lists and your attitude, if only needed of course.
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Just how low is inventory now? For the first time ever, every geographic region in West Virginia is experiencing a housing shortage, according to the state association of Realtors. On a nationwide scale, the supply of homes for sale fell 29.5 percent year over year, which was the largest annual decline ever, according to a NAR statistic used in this NBC News piece.
At the current sales pace, it would take two months to exhaust this supply. One year ago, there was a three-month supply, which we all know is an already low mark.
That tight supply continues to fuel home prices, which were 15.8 percent higher in February year over year. The median price of an existing home sold during the month was $313,000. Prices are rising due to bidding wars for homes, but the median was also skewed higher because more sales are occurring on the higher end of the market, the article noted.
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