SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – If you’re planning on purchasing a home in the Bay Area soon, you may be up against steep competition.

According to San Diego-based company DataQuick, house and condo sales throughout the Bay Area in July were the highest since 2005.

A total of 9,339 sales were finalized, up 13.3 percent from July 2012, when 8,241 homes were sold, according to DataQuick.

The sales were at its highest since 12,538 homes sold in July 2005, the data company stated.

The spike in sales was most evident in Santa Clara County, where 2,244 homes were sold, 26.1 percent more than the 1,779 from July last year.

In San Francisco, 718 homes sold last month, up 31.3 percent from last July’s 547 sales.

Solano County was the only Bay Area county that recorded fewer sales this July from last, totaling a 0.8 percent decrease, from 610 last year to 605 last month.

With the rise in sales, the median price of homes in the Bay Area has also increased, reaching its highest price in more than five and a half years.

In July, the median price was $562,000, the highest since December 2007 when homes were averaging a price tag of roughly $587,500, according to DataQuick.

Twelve months ago, the median price of homes in the nine-county region was 33.5 percent less, averaging roughly $421,000 per sale.

All counties throughout the Bay Area recorded an increase in median sale prices, but none more than in Contra Costa County, which had its median sale price rise nearly 43 percent from $308,000 to $440,000, according to DataQuick.

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Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/08/15/bay-area-home-sales-home-prices-climbing/

Crashing home prices and sketchy mortgage products caused millions of Americans to default on their loans and eventually lose their homes. For some, it was a tragic fight to the end to keep their single largest investment; for others it was a conscious decision to walk away from their mortgage commitments, given the real fact that they would likely not see home equity again for many years to come.

Some saw this as morally reprehensible, others as a sensible business decision.

(Read More: Fewer Borrowers Are Behind on Mortgages, but for How Long?)

While home ownership has fallen dramatically since the recent housing boom, from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004 to 65.4 percent at the end of 2012, according to the U.S. Census, the desire to own a home is still strong. 70 percent of Americans surveyed by online real estate website Trulia.com said homeownership was still a part of the “American Dream.” 65 percent of those surveyed by Fannie Mae in January of 2013 said that if they had to move, they would buy a home, rather than rent.

Coming back to home ownership may not be as difficult as some think. Consumers who only defaulted on their mortgage during the recent recession were far better risks than those who went delinquent on multiple credit accounts, like credit cards and auto loans, according to a 2011 study by TransUnion.

“There appears to be a pocket of opportunity among mortgage-only defaulters that is not the result of excess liquidity, but rather the unique circumstances of the recent recession,” said Steve Chaouki, group vice president in TransUnion’s financial services business unit in the study release. “This new market segment that the recession created is an important one for lenders to understand. They have the potential, today, to be stronger and more reliable customers.”

Not surprisingly, given this potential, YouWalkAway.com is launching the “AfterForeclosure.com Pass/Fail App,” which claims to tell potential borrowers in just one minute, “if they have a shot at home ownership.”

“We want people to know that it’s possible and, in a lot of cases, it’s advantageous,” says Jon Maddux, former CEO and co-founder of YouWalkAway.com.

(Read More: US Homeowners RiseAbove Water on Mortgages)

It is possible, but mortgage underwriting is far more strict today than during the housing boom, and there are varying waiting periods before former homeowners who went through foreclosure can qualify for a new loan. The Federal Housing Administration, the government insurer of home loans which now backs just over 20 percent of new loan originations, requires a three-year wait. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee the bulk of the remaining new loan originations, require up to seven years for a strategic defaulter to qualify again for a mortgage.

(Read More: Americans Are Using Their Houses as ATMs Again)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100485159

The theory is that people stop doing all the other household, energy-sucking, activities, like laundry, during the game, and they also congregate in one space, leaving lights off throughout the rest of the home. People also attend Super Bowl parties at each other’s homes, leaving their own homes powered down. Last year the Super Bowl saved the homeowners a collective three million dollars in energy costs.

That’s all very interesting, but how does that help you save money on your energy bill?

(Read More: Why Cold Weather Super Bowl Could Be a Financial Boon)

“What Opower does is we work with utilities across the globe to take boring energy data and turn it into interesting insights into people’s energy usage and use those insights to communicate to consumers and to change their behavior,” says Alex Laskey, president and founder of Opower.

(Read more: For Super Bowl Ads, It’s Go Viral or Go Home)

Opower works with 83 utilities, helping their 50 million customers save money on their home energy bills. They say they will help Americans save over $200 million in the next twelve months, about half of what the solar energy industry saves U.S. homeowners each year. Laskey describes how:

“So instead of a bill that comes at the end of the month that is frustrating and confusing because it’s high, and it’s too late to do anything about it, you get a proactive alert that might come in text message or a phone call. It says, you know what, it’s only a week into the month, but you’re on track for a bill that’s 40 percent higher than your typical bill, and here are the things you ought to do to make sure you don’t have the high of a bill at the end of the month.”

Customers will never know these insights come from Opower, because the utilities paying for the information brand it as their own. Whatever the messenger, the message is simple: Studying consumer behavior can help change consumer behavior. That is more important than ever as technology increasingly drives society.

Social media, as much as it connects us ideologically, separates us physically. Just knowing that when we do get together physically, for an event like the Super Bowl or otherwise, we are saving energy, might just change some of our behavior going forward.

Every little bit helps the planet.

(Read more: 12 Unusual Super Bowl Bets)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100427313

Mortgage rates may also be headed higher. Several members of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) thought it would “probably be appropriate to slow or to stop purchases [of assets including mortgage-backed securities] well before the end of 2013,” according to minutes of the committee’s latest meeting. Doing so would push mortgage rates higher. (Read More: Mortgage Recovery Still Rocky.)

Fitch analysts admit price recovery will vary widely depending on the local market conditions, but their case seems more bearish than most. Or is it?

“I personally think that a lot of the price appreciation we’re seeing in many markets right now is because the market of tradable homes is thinner than usual because of high negative equity,” said Zillow’s chief economist Stan Humphries. “This condition will change as home price gains pull homeowners out of negative equity and the market becomes more fluid.”

Zillow’s home value index was up 5.2 percent annually in November, but Humphries expects appreciation over the next twelve months of just 2.5 percent. He cites decreasing unemployment, rent increases, rising household formation and “essentially a five-year hiatus” in home building. (Read More: Most Affordable US Cities.)

Supply and demand, as they always have historically, will determine home prices going forward; unfortunately, both of those are currently too complicated and too economically sensitive to predict.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100355400

(Read More: Mortgage Deduction Is Popular, but Few Claim It)

Nearly one third (1.3 million) of sales in the past twelve months have been distressed, either REO (bank-owned homes) or short sales, according to LPS. That compares to just 226,000 in 2005 when overall home sales were twice the pace they are today.

It doesn’t stop there. The California Homeowners Bill of Rights goes into effect January 1, 2013. Similar legislation in Nevada doubled the foreclosure pipeline over the past year.

Another reason for the drop in new foreclosures may be a surge in loan modifications involving principal reduction. These are also mandated by the mortgage servicing settlement. Principal reduction modifications jumped 62 percent from October to November, according to Amherst Securities’ Laurie Goodman.

(Read More: Mortgage Applications Rose Last Week)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100280694