Burbank Real Estate Blog

3 & 6 Month Bill Auction

Tuesday 30

ICSC-USB Store Sales Tracks comparable weekly sales from major retail chains and represents 10% of total retail sales. Is considered to be one of the most timely indicators of consumer spending.

Redbook a timely indicator of consumer spending and also represents about 10% of total retail sales. This measure tracks weekly sales from discounters, chain and department stores.

Consumer Confidence

4 Week Bill Auction

FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) Meeting Begins!

Wednesday 31

MBA Purchase Applications-Measures Mortgage Lender applications, this is considered a leading indicator of single family home sales!

ADP Employment Report-National Employment report based on private payrolls

GDP The broadest measure of economic activity that takes all sectors of the economy into account.

Employment Cost Index-Measures total employee compensation costs, including benefits.

EIA Petroleum Status Report-Measures petroleum inventories in the US

Construction Spending- Good indicator of the economy’s momentum.

NAPM-Chicago-Business conditions in the Chicago area, another measure of economic growth.

10 year note and 30 year Treasury Bond Announcement

Farm Prices

FOMC Announcement!

Read more...... 

We don't have a very heavy agenda this week, but there were items of interest both for last week's and the upcoming agenda. 

Items of Note:

Last week the Burbank City Council approved the
parking amendment for multifamily dwellings.

This week the Council will look at the Rancho Amendment again, following up from the September 11th meeting. This time the text has been changed to make grocery stores a prohibited use in the Rancho commercial zones as opposed to just requiring a conditional use permit for the stores to operate.

The Burbank City Council will be meeting Tuesday at 6pm in the Burbank City Hall Council Chambers.

Remember that you can watch the City Council meetings live on Charter Communications Channel 6 or online at City of Burbank’s website.

If you are interested in reading the actual Burbank City Council agendas, please visit the City of Burbank website, City Council Activities! 

For more information on on Burbank Housing, please visit the BurbankMarketReport.com! 

Have a great week!

Stocks rallied today with Microsoft's blowout earnings announcement, their fiscal first quarter earnings beat expectations by more than $1 billion and Countrywide's upbeat profit forecast for the future.

Overall, it was another turbulent week with rumors swinging the market every which way. Rumors that the Fed will lower interest rates again when they meet next week, that AIG will have a very large write down etc.

Items of note for the week:

Merrill Lynch wrote down a whopping $7.9 billion of subprime and collateralized debt obligations, this was $3.4 billion dollars ABOVE their October 5th estimate! They reported a $2.24 billion dollar loss as compared to last year's $3.05 billion dollar profit. Needless to say, the subprime debacle continues to spread.

New Homes Sales, which were expected to come in at 770k(representing a 3.1% decline from August)came in at this number but the headline read it as a 4.8% increase as the August number, which was originally reported as 795k was revised to 735k. Confusing? A little but the revision made the September number look great, even though it came in as expected.......assuming no revisions.

Existing Homes Sales fell 8% to an annualized 5.04M. This is the slowest pace since the National Association of Realtors started reporting on this figure in 1999! The year to year decline is at 19.1%.

Housing Inventories for September were at a 10.5 month supply, the highest level since 1999.

Read more..... 

This is the first post in a series that looks at the current and past real estate market cycles.

The current cycle is starting to look somewhat like a 12 step program:

Step 1-Awareness of the subprime problem in late 2006

Step 2-Credit markets froze in July of 2007, which forced the Federal Reserve to step in.

Step 3-Losses start to hit at Citibank, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and many others.

Step 4-Yet to come, but could be worst of it, accentuated by job losses, lower retail sales and housing foreclosures.

Step 5-12 Recovery?

Steps 4 and 5-12 are based on some speculation, but I think these might be close to the mark, at least at a national level. Keep in mind that local real estate markets will always behave somewhat differently depending on their demographics, local economies, availability and affordability of homes, just to name a few important factors.

In looking back at this last cycle it's apparent that "easy" money, questionable loan practices, a friendly interest rate environment, little oversight and finally greed were the main culprits. This set of ingredients helped fuel the feeding frenzy for housing, not just by folks who should not have been buying from an affordability perspective, but also the many investors who took advantage of these circumstances in order to "flip" properties.

Read more.... 

For sellers, the advantage of this type of transaction is the likelihood that the renter will, at some predetermined point in the future, buy the property. For buyers, rent to own can provide the credit challenged or cash poor buyer a route to homeownership.

Be careful, and make sure to consider your options, because the rent to own transaction can have many potential drawbacks, for both the buyer and the seller.  Consider the following issues:   Read More...

While certainly not the hardest hit area, Burbank has felt the pain related to the subprime situation.  Increasingly buyers are finding it more difficult to buy a home, especially if the price is above the conforming limit of $417,000 and if they have any issues related to their credit history. 

For a detailed look at housing statistics in Burbank, please visit the  Burbank Housing Report.....

City of Burbank has an excellent page on their website, under conservation, that lists over 50 energy saving tips!

Many of these tips are common sense and you may be using them already, but there are some you may not have considered, such as:

• Make sure the seals in the oven fit properly.
• Do not use fireplaces while your central heating system in on.

Read More....

Congratulations to City of Burbank for winning a clean air award from the South Coast Air Quality Management District(AQMD).

Thanks to Burbank’s environmentally friendly policies they joined with other Southern California cities to form the Five Cities Hydrogen Program in 2006.  The other cities that participate in the program are Ontario, Riverside, Santa Ana and Santa Monica. 

Read More..... 

As you may have heard on the news or experienced first hand Southern California is in the midst of a fire season nightmare.  These fires have been incredibly tragic for the many people who have been evacuated or lost their homes and belongings.

One of the issues that comes up with these fires is the air quality for impacted and surrounding areas. If you have young children, elderly, animals etc. and are concerned about the air quality in your area here are some great resources to check out:

US EPA Air Now!-Air Quality Maps

EPA's Air Quality Index Guide 

Weather Channel Hourly Ozone Levels 

American Lung Association-How to Protect Yourself 

Hope this lists helps 

Burbank City Council meets monthly at 6pm in the Council Chambers at Burbank City Hall.  There are a couple of interesting items on the agenda tonight that are noteworthy.  

Items of Note:

Parking Requirement Changes

The council will consider changing the amount of parking spaces required for multifamily residential projects.   This item is especially interesting when you look at the amount of people that park around multifamily projects.  The current Municipal Code requires 1 guest parking space for every 5 family residential units......yes, you read that correctly!