When is the 2016 Willo Home Tour?
Sunday, February 14th, 2016, from 10 am – 4 pm

Visitors can park at the parking garage located at 1st Avenue and Holly. You are also welcome to park in any available location within the neighborhood. Trolleys will be continually running throughout the day and you are welcome to hop on and off at your convenience.  Or if you live in the area, you can simply walk or bike the tour.

Besides touring the homes there is an incredible Street Fair with over 100 vendors providing food, arts & crafts, area services and lot more. Most of the food will be north and south of Monte Vista and 3rd Ave while the other vendors will be lined up and down the streets on Monte Vista and Holly Street between 3rd and 5th avenues.

Music is always a fun part of the Willo Historic Home Tour. You’ll find bands playing all afternoon near the park at 3rd Ave and Monte Vista. They have quite a line up this year with a great variety of music.

If you know you want to go, Buy Tickets Here

What Is the Willo Home Tour?

Once a year, the Willo Historic District invites residents and Valley visitors to have an inside look at some of the unique homes that make up the neighborhood. Willo is Phoenix’s largest historic district consisting of over 900 homes. Willo is bordered north to south by Thomas and McDowell, and east to west by 1st Avenue and 7th Avenue.

The Willo Historic Home Tour and Street Fair has something for everyone. Each year approximately a dozen architecturally significant homes and the historic firehouse are open to the public for an inside look. The homes range in style from Tudor to Spanish Revival, Bungalow and Ranch and were built from the 1920’s through the 1940’s.  If laid back relaxation is more your style then you can enjoy the classic car show on Holly at Third Ave. and the beer/wine garden.

Ticket sales and the street fair are centered around Walton Park in the heart of Willo, where Holly and Monte Vista intersect at Third Avenue.

The Willo Home Tour is the sole fundraiser for the neighborhood and provides the funding for neighborhood movie nights, holiday luminarias, Block Watch, Willo Yard Sale advertising, Kids Club activities and other neighborhood events. The Tour is put on by volunteers who live in the neighborhood.

Once a year, the residents of the Willo Historic District put out the “welcome mat” and open their homes to Valley visitors. Stroll Willo’s tree lined streets from house to house, or jump a trolley that will carry visitors throughout the neighborhood.

Don’t miss this fun-filled opportunity to visit architecturally significant, finely decorated homes while supporting the beautiful neighborhood of Willo.

If you have questions about this years 2016 Willo Home Tour please email Laura B. at historiccentralphoenix@cox.net and check out their awesome and informative website for additional information,

Why homeowners are leaving billions on the table

Mortgage rates have been so low for so long that it is hard to believe nearly everybody hasn’t refinanced to a lower rate yet. Believe it. More than 5 million borrowers could both qualify and benefit from a mortgage refinance, according to a new report from Black Knight Financial Services.

True, that is less than the nearly 7 million who could have refinanced just last spring, when the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was below 3.7 percent.

Today, thanks to the rout in the stock market, rates have fallen back just below 4 percent. About 2.4 million borrowers could potentially save $200 or more on their monthly mortgage payments and an additional 1.9 million could save $100 to $200 per month. Add it up, and that is $1.2 billion still on the table, according to Black Knight.

“If rates go up 50 basis points from where they are now, 2.1 million borrowers will fall out of the running; a 100-basis-point increase would eliminate another million, leaving only 2 million potential refinance candidates, the lowest population of refinance candidates in recent history,” said Ben Graboske, senior vice president at Black Knight Data & Analytics.

In other words, borrowers should act now, as mortgage rates are expected to rise through 2016. While mortgage rates do not follow the Federal Reserve’s moves exactly, they will rise with an improving economy and job growth.

The robust rise in home values has helped bring millions of borrowers back above water on their home loans, allowing them to qualify for a refinance.

There is also, however, a government refinance program, called HARP, for those still owing more on their loans than their homes are worth. To qualify, borrowers must have loans backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the FHA. There are about 430,000 borrowers who could still benefit from HARP.

Rising home values have also given borrowers more “tappable” home equity — that is, money they could take out in the form of a home equity line of credit (HELOC).

While underwriting is far more strict for these loans today than during the last housing boom, when people used their homes like ATMs, they are available at low rates. Their popularity, in fact, is growing again, up 35 percent in 2015 from 2014 levels.

Homeowners today have a collective $4.2 trillion in available home equity, up $600 billion over the last year, according to Black Knight.

About 37 million borrowers could pull out an average $112,000 before hitting the amount of equity most banks require them to keep in the home. Average credit scores on new HELOC originations today, though, are at a record high.

Californians are the big winners in home equity. More than a third of the nation’s collective home equity is in the state.

The state has the most borrowers eligible for a refinance and/or a HELOC. Texas and Florida are next with the most home equity ready to be tapped. Refinancing a primary loan is heavily rate-dependent, but borrowers are still willing to take out a HELOC at higher rates.

“While it’s not a hard and fast rule that borrowers won’t refinance into a higher rate in order to tap available equity — 23 percent of cash-out refi borrowers over the past six months did just that — for the most part, as rates rise, HELOCs will continue to become more popular to homeowners looking to tap available equity,” said Graboske.

Borrowers today appear to be more cautious about their home equity. Those who are taking the money out are using it to pay down debt or to improve their homes, adding value to the investment — as opposed to buying luxury vacations, cars and second homes as they did a decade ago, when home equity was more of an optimistic notion to lenders than an actual reality.

Courtesy of Diana Olick CNBC Real Estate Reporte

The sell-off in the stock market was a boon to the mortgage market last week. Mortgage application volume jumped 9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week, compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Refinance applications were the driver of total volume. They surged 19 percent from the previous week, seasonally adjusted, but are 40 percent below where they were a year ago, when rates were even lower.

Applications to purchase a home fell 2 percent week-to-week, although they are 17 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 59.1 percent of total applications from 55.8 percent the previous week.

“Global stock markets plunged last week, led by weakness in China, but further weakened by continued sharp drops in oil prices. Investors drove down Treasury yields in a flight to safety, and mortgage rates fell to their lowest level since last October,” said Michael Fratantoni, the MBA’s chief economist.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) decreased to 4.06 percent, from 4.12 percent, with points increasing to 0.41 from 0.38 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio loans, according to the MBA. For borrowers with high credit scores and significant down payments, lenders offered rates below 4 percent.

Mortgage rates moved very slightly higher Tuesday, as the stock market closed in positive territory. Lenders, however, are looking for a more decisive recovery in stocks, after the rout that has plagued 2016 so far.

“It’s clear that every time it looks like stocks are considering a bigger bounce that rates quickly get in position for a more meaningful move higher,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily. “Rates would be in more trouble if stocks happened to make bigger gains tomorrow (Wednesday).”

Courtesy of Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter

Parents are forgoing back yards and even living rooms to carve out space for the toys

How essential to young families is having a playroom for the kids? Very. And some are giving up another longtime family favorite feature to get them: the sprawling backyard.

Buyers today, especially millennial buyers, want everyone to have a private space of their own to decompress under one roof, and the bonus room/playroom outweighs a large yard in their buying decision. The first item that seems to fall off the list is the large yard.

It was a formal living room repurposed into a playroom that recently swayed clients of Blackwelder’s to purchase a home in Bristow, Va. Gone were the typical sitting chairs and end tables, replaced by shelving for toys, blackboard paint and a Dr. Seuss quotation on a wall.

While the home has a yard, it’s small. No matter; since moving in, the buyers have been taking their children to a nearby playground anyway, Blackwelder said.

The biggest requirements for families with children, according to the National Association of Realtors, is what you’d expect: 62% of those with kids 18 and under say the quality of the neighborhood is important, while 50% are looking for a good school district and 49% want the home to be convenient to their jobs. Fewer said that lot size or proximity to parks and recreational facilities were a factor in choosing a home. The statistics come from the group’s 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report.

Yet once those top-level needs are met, families start to make more detail-level compromises. And being able to visualize a place for the kids to corral their stuff and play has become a priority, according to Blackwelder and others.

In the San Francisco area, Ann Thompson, regional sales executive at Bank of America Home Loans, is seeing the same thing. Indoor play space was a top desire for buyers in 2015, she said.

“People are happy to have a patio for the kids to play on. The big-yard thing — it’s not necessarily everyone’s grandest dream anymore,” Thompson said. That may be especially true in California, where persistent drought — and restrictions on water usage — influence how much lawn people desire. Many owners also don’t want to spend the time or the money required to keep up a large lawn, she said.

That isn’t to say that a large backyard doesn’t remain a priority — for some buyers, in some locations. In Kansas City, for one, families don’t seem to be interested in downsizing lawns, said Sherri Hines, a real-estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Kansas City Homes.

“We are so used to space and land, we don’t have houses right on top of each other; we are very spread out geographically,” she said. “And I don’t see that diminishing.” Housing is also generally more affordable there than, for example, in markets on the coasts, and home buyers may not need to compromise as much as in high-cost areas.

But in the Kansas City area, too, an indoor play area is a priority, Hines said, since parents want a separate space to keep toys from flooding the kitchen and family areas. “The volume of toys we have is much higher [than in generations past],” she observed.

New life for the dining room
Millennials, in particular, are good at repurposing home spaces so that they’re more aligned with life today, said Jill Waage, executive editor for the Better Homes and Gardens brand. The brand includes the print magazine from which it gets its name and also includes its website, social platforms, apps, broadcast programs and licensed products. For years now, formal spaces such as dining rooms have been out of favor with many home buyers.

“They are willing to look at the renaming and reuse of the home,” she said, changing rooms “into something that they get value out of every day and every week.”

Retailers are also suggesting the dual-use room as a trend. On the website for Land of Nod, a Chicago-based retailer of children’s furniture and products, there are tips on how to create a formal dining room and playroom in one.

“Just because at some point in time someone wrote ‘dining room’ over this square plot in your home, doesn’t mean that it can only forever and henceforth be used as a dining room,” it reads, adding that often a formal dining room is used only a few days a year for gatherings. “We say you can have your dining room four days a year, but you can also have a playroom 361 days a year.”

Courtesy of: Amy Hoak – MarketWatch

5 Huge Mistakes People Make Furnishing Their New Home

Here are some fantastic tips for when it is time to furnish your new home. What to do and what NOT to do.

So, you’ve purchased a new home. Each home has its own character, especially if it’s a historic Phoenix home. You’ll want to make sure your decorating is as unique as the house itself.

Hey, we know: Moving into a new home is exciting. Like, obsess over decor blogs and catalogs, binge-watch HGTV for eight-hour stretches, find ways to interject phrases like “open kitchen shelving” into everyday conversations exciting.

So, it’s understandable that you’re dying to start filling every corner with stuff as soon as you’ve unpacked your last box. Beware: Time and again, interior designers see overeager new homeowners make the same mistakes when furnishing their home. Big mistakes! Take heed and tread carefully into your new space.

Mistake No. 1: Buying everything at once

Of course, you want to make those empty rooms look like home, sweet home, pronto. So you whip out your laptop and go on a mad room-by-room shopping spree for every stick of furniture from coffee tables to your canopy bed.

But Mark Clement of MyFixItUpLife.com urges a completely different strategy: “Stop, sit down, get out a piece of paper, and plan.” Great decorating, he says, is about taking your time to think through the rooms. Make a list of what you need to furnish the whole house; then focus first on the two to three most important rooms—generally the more exposed parts of the house such as living room, kitchen, and family room. From there, proceed at a pace where you’re certain you love (or at least deeply like) each purchase you make.

It really is OK to take up to a year to decorate a new home. You’re going to be living there for a while, remember?

Mistake No. 2: Decorating around a legacy piece

It might be your mother’s armoire or that overstuffed chair your husband bought when he was still single, or maybe it’s a bookshelf you paid a ton of money for and wouldn’t consider tossing. Regardless, trying to decorate around some of these pieces will only cause you grief. Odds are they’ll push you into a certain layout or color scheme—even one that might be completely wrong for you or your new home.

I’ve personally been saddled with two wide, black Barcelona chairs for the past decade, creating a living room motif that is simply too dark and cluttered for the space. (Welcome to my pain.) What I should have done, according to experts, is place them in a different context (a bedroom, perhaps), sold them, or put them out on the street. Hello, Goodwill?

Mistake No. 3: Trusting your ‘eye’ rather than a tape measure

Professionals know that measuring accurately is a critical step in design.

“Measuring a space is imperative before you purchase anything,” says Homepolish designer Will Saks. It’s not just a question of whether a piece of furniture will fit, but how it will look sitting there. “You need to understand the dimensions of a space so the scale will feel balanced,” Saks adds.

Everything needs to be proportionate to the architecture of the room. “While a large, overstuffed Chesterfield might look great in the store, in a tiny apartment it might end up looking like a fat guy in a little coat,” says Saks.

And always remember to measure doorways and hallways before purchasing large pieces. There are few things more soul-crushing (or, for the delivery guys, more backbreaking) than lugging a sofa up six flights of stairs only to discover it doesn’t fit through the doorway. Most companies will give you the minimum clearance you need for delivery, but it’s up to you to ensure that it will truly fit. In most cases, it’s the height of a sofa that is the key measurement, not the width or depth.

Mistake No. 4: Cramming rooms like a clown car

Take a deep breath: It’s OK to have some empty spaces and walls. You want to be able to move around freely without having to hurdle a cocktail ottoman. Granted, while Saks maintains that “how much furniture you decide to put in a space is completely dependent on the aesthetic you want to achieve,” if you’re going for a more sleek look, stick to a few key pieces in a room to create the feeling of openness. The same goes for artwork—one large frame can create an art gallery feeling.

Mistake No. 5: Looking like a page from a catalog or decor mag

Ah, it all looks so great in print, but in your home, it’s a different story.

“I know it’s tempting to want to buy everything all at once and from the same place—those catalogs and stores are styled so well,” says Saks. “But refrain from doing so. To me, the most interesting designs are the ones that are aesthetically mixed.”

His tips: Incorporate vintage or one-of-a-kind pieces into your space to make it feel personal and curated. Pair that spanking new sofa with a beautiful, vintage credenza. Shop for accessories and artwork on Etsy and at flea markets so that your home feels unique. Because as nice as catalogs look, ask yourself this: Do they look like a home? Like your home?

Courtesy of:

Rosie Amodio is a writer/editor who has written for brands such as Self, InStyle, Wetpaint, and The Nest. A native New Yorker, Rosie is obsessed with NYC real estate, though she dreams of living on the beach in Southern California

Jonathan Marino and Andy Kiersz Dec. 26, 2015, 8:44 AM

The Federal Reserve has finally lifted interest rates from 0% and after nine years without a rate hike.

The potential ramifications of the policy move are far-reaching and span various American industries, from automakers to homebuilders to investment banks.

But those impacts may be disparate.

Typically, rising interest rates make for a more difficult borrowing environment. That has the potential to slow home sales, which impacts US banks, as well as new starts, which will hurt homebuilders.

With the Fed’s rate hike, history shows homes starts have tended toward a decline, which will inevitably hurt homebuilders. When rates get higher, building new homes is usually a less attractive prospect.

“Homebuilding stocks are typically losers from an absolute and relative standpoint during tightening cycles,” according to a separate Credit Suisse note from December 15. “Historically homebuilding stocks under performed the S&P 500 during each of the past six Fed tightening cycles.”

For years after the Federal Reserve’s decision to back down interest rates to 0%, a badly beaten homebuilding sector saw gradual increases in both homes starts and permits. They never rose to the pre-crisis levels, but the period that led up to this was in part fueled by an unprecedented boom in lending to many unqualified borrowers.

Yet it is debatable on Wall Street whether the average consumer’s psyche is far less tethered to the behavior of US central bankers than, say, that of a Wall Street executive.

“If we do see some rate increases coming, because it reflects a stronger economy, nobody is going to not buy a house because the mortgage rates went up,” Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf said the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference earlier this month. “They can choose a different product and probably get the same rate. The same thing is true for small businesses.”

But Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan doesn’t agree with Stumpf.

“If you see rates rise, you’ll see the mortgage market slow down,” Moynihan said at same event earlier this month, before the Federal Reserve raised rates.

At still the same event, Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman noted that most interest-rate hikes have typically resulted in an uptick in home prices.

“Twenty-five out of 26 times when interest rates went up, home prices went up,” Schwarzman said.

If that is indeed the case, homebuilders may be better building more and aiming to make it up on margin. Even at the end of 2016, interest rates are expected to remain near record lows for the last half-century.

It’s a great time to buy a home.