Mortgage rates dip below 5 percent again

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.97 percent this week, down from last week’s 5.01 percent and 5.16 percent last year at this time, Freddie Mac reported today.

The 15-year FRM slipped to 4.34 percent from 4.40 percent the previous week and 4.81 a year ago.

The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.19 percent in comparison with 4.27 percent a week ago and 5.23 percent one year earlier.

As for the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM, it went up to 4.33 percent from 4.22 percent last week. But it was 4.94 percent last year.  Commented Chief Economist Frank Nothaft:

“In mid-June of last year. . . 30-year fixed-mortgage rates topped nearly 5.6 percent. Currently, the monthly payments would be almost $77 per month lower on a $200,000 loan balance.”

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Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
Web site

Proof exists that the right pricing strategy wins

Kitchen of loft purchased by Anand Desai and his wife Erica.

The property in Manhattan was priced at $13.9 million early last year and then reduced to $9.95 million because it persisted in languishing on the market.  It is a luxe (of course!) loft on the 17th floor of 15 Madison Square North at the edge of Madison Square Park recently sold for much more than the lower price, reports the Observer.

The freshly renovated 5,000-sf unit has 14-foot ceilings and all the usual extravagant accoutrements.

The Corcoran Sunshine Group, which marketed the property said the price cut prompted a bidding war:

“Listed early in 2009 at $13.5 million, the price was later reduced in order to draw a larger audience of interested buyers. In this case, our reduced price generated significant interest and multiple bidders for this wonderful home, which in the end drove the price back up. As is always true in an efficient market, the market ultimately sets the price.”

Brokers tend to be of three minds when pricing a property to the extent that they can predict its true value: Above, at or below that value.  In a buyers’ market, many brokers prefer an asking price above the perceived value  to leave room for negotiating down.  Either way, many sellers, who have the last word, ignore the advice for which they pay dearly.

Naturally, circumstances vary (the chief one being how quickly the owner wants to sell), but I don’t favor listing a place above what economic and market conditions suggest it will bring.

The point is to expose a listing to as many likely buyers in as short a time as possible.  And the way to do that is to tempt them with at least a fair price, if not a bargain.

(To digress, Noah Rosenblatt the other day had a post in his blog, UrbanDigs.com, motivating me to comment that the conventional wisdom is correct: The first offer frequently is the best one.)

Cutting the price worked beautifully for the loft.  Hedge funder Adnan Desai and his wife Erica engaged in the resulting bidding war with gusto.  They bought the unit for $12 million.

Such is a lesson of how to get the best price that many sellers would do well to emulate.

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Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
Web site