The new collection will combine traditional elements in contemporary contexts to enhance today’s residential, commercial and executive office interiors.

Stefan Buescher, Director of Product and Marketing, Bentley Motors, said: For more than 90 years Bentley has produced the world’s finest hand-crafted car interiors – now we are making our approach to luxury available to people’s homes and offices.”

Club House Italia – which furnishes the finest homes, boardrooms, apartments, hotels, yachts and private jets – will reflect Bentley’s elegant, prestigious and recognisable style in the creation of a range of furniture that combines the highest attention to detail with the finest aesthetic sensibility.

The new Bentley Home collection will combine the traditional elan of the British driver’s spirit with a new modern English twist, an approach so superbly articulated in the Bentley suite at the St Regis hotel, New York.

There, the combination of traditional and modern reaches a new dimension in the use of leather, precious wood veneers, steel, wool, silk and glass throughout the suite, and the distinctive quality of each object mirrors that of a Bentley model’s performance and luxury core elements.

The recent Milan Furniture fair provided the backdrop for a special preview of a small selection of items leading to the full collection launch at the Maison et Object International show in Paris, January 2014.
 

The post May 17, 2013 – Bentley Home Collection appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

From the NAHB: Builder Confidence Improves in May:
Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes improved three points to a 44 reading on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) for May, released today. This gain, from a downwardly revised 41 in April, reflected improvement in all three index components – current sales conditions, sales expectations and traffic of prospective buyers.
…
“While industry supply chains will take time to re-establish themselves following recession-related cutbacks, builders’ views of current sales conditions have improved and expectations for the future remain quite strong as consumers head back to the market in force,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.
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All three HMI components posted gains in May. The index gauging current sales conditions increased four points to 48, while the index gauging expectations for future sales edged up a single point to 53 – its highest level since February of 2007. The index gauging traffic of prospective buyers gained three points to 33.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, no movement was recorded in the Northeast, Midwest or South, which held unchanged at 37, 45 and 42, respectively. Only the West recorded a decline, of six points to 49 in May.

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This graph compares the NAHB HMI (left scale) with single family housing starts (right scale). This includes the May release for the HMI and the March data for starts (April housing starts will be released tomorrow). This was slightly above the consensus estimate of a reading of 43.

The post May 15, 2013 – Builder Confidence increases in May appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

The post May 10, 2013 – Coastal Market Update – Laguna Beach appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

Riley, who piloted the ‘Showtime’ Lakers to multiple NBA Championships in the 80’s, originally purchased the prized beach home in 1989 for $1.6 million. Found tucked away off of Broad Beach road, the beachfront abode offers three bedrooms, two baths and a bonus office. Walls of glass in the kitchen and living room give way to expansive Ocean views, while a patio deck presents the perfect place to take in an iconic California sunset.

*Pat Riley’s rental home is not available until September 1, 2013.

The post May 6, 2013 – Rent Pat Riley’s Malibu Beach House appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

Demand measured by the Market Action Index is increasing, and days on market are trending downward. Even as more properties come available, these are positive trends for the market.

Supply and Demand

Home sales have been exceeding new inventory for several weeks. Since the market is already in the seller’s zone, expect prices to level off very soon. Should the sales trend continue, expect that prices could climb from there.

Price

Prices in Newport Coast have been on a downward trend recently, and this week, while essentially flat, doesn’t break us out of that cycle.

The post May 3, 2013 – Coastal Market Update – Newport Coast appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

How did Americans develop such a peculiar financial practice? The New Deal.

In many ways, the mortgages of the 1920s resembled the more exotic ones of today. Balloon loans with terms of just three to five years were common. Homeowners, like those of the 2000s, simply expected to be able to refinance. The money for these mortgages, in an eerie echo of today, came from debt that banks sold to investors, and the bond-repayment periods were equally short.

As investors became skittish after the stock-market crash of 1929, investors stopped buying mortgage bonds. Banks no longer had the capital to refinance homeowners, and no one could refinance their mortgages. The only thing that prevented the collapse of the housing market was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, a government-sponsored enterprise, which started swapping bonds of its own for bank mortgages, injecting liquidity into the system.

New Deal

Understandably, when policy makers started to think about how to reform the system, they tried to find ways to make mortgage borrowing and lending have longer terms, so that a crisis wouldn’t be self-perpetuating. In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration introduced an audacious plan to remake the way Americans borrowed.

In 1933, much as today, private capital was piling up in banks that were too afraid to lend. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped James Moffett, a vice-president of Standard Oil Co., to oversee the new agency. Both agreed that capital needed to flow nationally for the economy to reignite. Roosevelt thought that a national mortgage market would be more stable and just. Writing to Moffett, he reaffirmed “that the refunding of existing mortgages in long term, amortized mortgages” would “result in a safer mortgage structure for the country.”

But FDR wasn’t just concerned with market stability; he shared the American “conviction that every practical attempt at lowering the cost of homes to the great mass of our people is worthy of our best efforts.”

The most imaginative part of the FHA plan was that the government wouldn’t pay for any of it. Lenders would contribute to an insurance pool organized by, but not funded by, the federal government. If there was a default on a mortgage, the lender would be paid out of the pool. Paid in low-yielding bonds, the lender wouldn’t lose the principal of the mortgage, but neither would the lender have an incentive to lend to the unworthy. With such a long repayment period, the monthly installments could incorporate both interest and principal.

Mortgage amortization, as such a plan was called, eradicated the need for refinancing, which made the balloon mortgages so precarious. A long period made the mortgages independent of short-term fluctuations in the economy. Borrowers wouldn’t have to weather both unemployment and refinancing at the same time.

The FHA preserved private choice while accomplishing a public good. No lenders had to comply with the FHA, but if they did, their business would be much easier to conduct. Risk-free loans with guaranteed buyers provided an incredible -― and noncoercive -― incentive to lend private capital.

Immoral Loans

The FHA’s plan was a revolution in finance. No longer would homeowners borrow on balloon notes for a few years. Instead they could borrow for 15 or 20 years (a length of time that bankers had previously thought was immorally long). The loans could only be used for good housing that would last for decades, and the FHA would inspect all the houses to make sure they met standards. The new thinking was that it was more immoral to create a situation where homeowners would be foreclosed on.

As Time magazine described it, the new system was a departure from the “old-fashioned mortgage that was renewed in good times and foreclosed in bad.” The FHA insured the loans so that private capital sources, such as banks and insurance companies, would invest in them. Moffett authorized pamphlets explaining how the building and banking industries could both profit from the FHA. Animosity toward government spending remained, but support for the FHA increased.

With guaranteed mortgages, the risk fell to nothing, allowing Roosevelt to mandate that the FHA mortgages paid a low fixed rate of 5 percent (compared with the market rate of 12 percent) nationwide. Moral or not, long-term mortgages stabilized the housing market and increased the quality of U.S. housing stock, bringing a new expectation of long-term mortgages to the American borrower.

The post May 2, 2013 – How 30-Year Mortgages Saved the Housing Market appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

Inventory is tightening, and days on market are falling. The Market Action Index shows demand heating up. These are relatively bullish signs for prices.

Supply and Demand
The market continues to get hotter. More sales demand and fewer homes listed have contributed to a relatively long run of increasing prices. Current supply and demand levels show no sign of prices changing from their current trend.

Price
The market for Corona del Mar continues its bounce again this week. We’re a long way from the market’s high point so watch the Market Action Index to predict how long this trend will last.
 

The post April 30, 2013 – Coastal Market Update – Corona del Mar appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

Drawn by the prospect of double-figure profit margins on rents and the resale of homes whose prices plummeted in the crash, hedge funds, Wall Street investors and other institutions are crowding out individual home buyers.

U.S. home prices rise in January: Increases were reported in most of the cities that the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index tracks, and home prices rose by the highest rates since 2006.

If the chain of easy credit and dangerous leverage that started on Wall Street fanned the housing bubble and eventual crash, some analysts find it disturbing that major investors are the ones snapping up the bargains — and eventual big profits — left in its wake.

“There is the possibility that Wall Street and the banks and the affluent 1 percent stand to gain the most from this,” said Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant based in Deerfield Beach, Fla. “Meanwhile, lower-income Americans will lose their opportunity for the American Dream of building wealth through owning a home.”

Real estate executives say institutional investors — who in some cases are bidding on hundreds of homes a day. Over the past two years, analysts say, they also have accounted for a majority of purchases in other parts of the country where housing prices are rebounding sharply.

“I don’t know whether things are as good as they seem to be. A lot of properties are being occupied by institutional investors, not the end-user,” said Scott Kranz, co-principal of Title Capital Management. The ability of investors to make cash deals is helping them buy a large portion of the distressed homes that continue to flood the market. Property brokers and others say traditional buyers — even those able to qualify for financing in a still-tight mortgage market — are finding it difficult to compete with the cash and market savvy of large investors.

The post April 23, 2013 – Wall Street betting billions on single-family homes appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

“Most districts noted increases in manufacturing activity since the previous report,” the central bank said today in its Beige Book business survey, which is based on reports from the Fed’s 12 regional banks from late February to early April. “Particular strength was seen in industries tied to residential construction and automobiles.”

Most regions said “residential and commercial real estate improved markedly” as housing prices rose in many areas and demand for home loans was “steady to slightly up,” the Fed said. Consumer spending “grew modestly” even as some regions said sales were curbed by rising gasoline prices, higher payroll taxes and winter weather. “Employment conditions remained unchanged or improved somewhat,” the report said.

Several policy makers, including Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley, have said the Fed should maintain record monetary stimulus after an April 5 report showed employers added 88,000 workers in March, the smallest gain in nine months. The Federal Open Market Committee said in March that it will continue buying $85 billion in bonds each month until the labor market “improves substantially.”

Renewed Pledge

The panel also repeated its pledge to keep the main interest rate near zero so long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent and the forecast for inflation doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent over one to two years.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index remained lower after the report, declining 1.7 percent to 1,548.45 as of 2:51 p.m. in New York amid losses in industrial metals and disappointing earnings from Bank of America Corp. and others. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury decreased 0.03 percentage point to 1.69 percent.

Today’s Beige Book report showed that growth was “moderate” in five districts, “modest” in another five and accelerated “slightly” in the New York and Dallas districts.

“The tone is slightly more upbeat, which is encouraging as we have had some data suggesting the economy hit a soft patch,” said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit. “The regional breakdown tells us the economy is holding up a little better than expected.”

In its last Beige Book report, released on March 6, the Fed said the economy grew at a modest to moderate pace across most of the country amid rising consumer demand for homes and autos.

Fed Meeting

The anecdotal snapshots from the Fed district banks help the FOMC evaluate the economy prior to its next meeting. Policy makers plan to meet April 30-May 1 in Washington.

While housing and auto sales are bright spots this year, retail sales declined in March amid across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration. Tax increases have also taken a toll on demand.

“Continued modest growth right now is most likely,” said Josh Feinman, the New York-based global chief economist for DB Advisors, the Deutsche Bank AG asset manager overseeing $228 billion, and a former Fed senior economist in Washington.

Fed officials are debating when to curtail their unprecedented bond buying. Several FOMC members said at their March 19-20 meeting that the Fed should begin tapering its quantitative easing program this year and stop the asset purchases by year end, meeting minutes released April 10 showed.

Job Outlook

FOMC members “thought that if the outlook for labor-market conditions improved as anticipated, it would probably be appropriate to slow purchases later in the year and to stop them by year-end,” according to the record of the gathering.

That was before a Labor Department report showing the pace of job growth in March fell from 268,000 a month before. The unemployment rate slid to a four-year low of 7.6 percent as the workforce participation rate slumped to 63.3 percent, the lowest since 1979.

Fed policy has helped shore up demand. Cars sold at an average 15.3 million annualized rate in the first quarter, the most since the same period in 2008, according to Ward’s Automotive Group data.

Housing has gained as Fed easing pushed mortgage rates to record lows. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities climbed 8.1 percent in January from a year earlier, the most since June 2006.

Home Construction

New-home construction in the U.S. climbed in March to the highest level in almost five years, propelled by a surge in multifamily building, a report from the Commerce Department showed yesterday. Other reports showed consumer prices unexpectedly dropped last month and factory production cooled.

Dudley said yesterday federal tax increases that took effect in January, along with the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, are curbing gains from the housing rebound and stronger business and consumer spending.

“In the near term, there is considerable uncertainty about the outlook, particularly because the multiplier effects from fiscal drag,” he said in a speech in Staten Island.

CSX Corp. (CSX), the biggest eastern U.S. railroad, said 2013 earnings growth may be “flat to down from prior-year levels,” according to the Jacksonville, Florida-based company’s first- quarter statement yesterday.
Chief Executive Officer Michael Ward said in a telephone interview today that growth will remain sluggish should Congress and President Barack Obama fail to agree on a budget.

‘Muddle Along’

“If we survive the near-term crises, we will continue to see slow growth,” Ward said. “My sense is we will continue to muddle along” at a range of 1 percent to 2 percent.
Retail sales dropped in March by the most in nine months, decreasing 0.4 percent. Confidence in the economy among Americans fell in April to a nine-month low, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment.

Even with those setbacks, gross domestic product probably climbed at a 3 percent annualized rate from January through March, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 69 economists from April 5 to April 9. That’s up from the 2 percent gain projected by economists last month.

The post April 17, 2013 – Fed Says ‘Moderate’ Growth Across U.S. Was Led by Housing appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president with Carrington Mortgage Holdings, told a crowd at the REOMAC 2013 Summit & Expo in Dallas on Monday that the housing market should expect things to get worse before they start improving.

But “this is not the 2005 market,” he said. “We are not creating a bubble.”

Sharga says the lack of available home inventory is the reason why home prices are rising. New-home inventories are at their lowest level in more than 30 years, he said. “Very few markets are anywhere near where we were at the peak,” he said. The markets showing some “bubble-like tendencies” are housing markets that saw the biggest declines, he noted.

LPS Applied Analytics recently predicted that home prices could rise another 35 percent without affecting affordability.

Sharga predicts that by this time next year there will be too many homes for sale. Housing and foreclosure starts are expected to start rising within the next year.

Source: “Carrington’s Sharga: We Are Not Creating Another Housing Bubble,” HousingWire (April 8, 2013)

The post April 10, 2013 – Economist Quashes Housing Bubble Rumors appeared first on Orange County Luxury Real Estate | The Coté-Vasu Preferred Team.