Realtors prepare for open houses around the globe

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors is promoting a nationwide open house Realtors weekend Saturday and Sunday, June 4 and 5, and is gearing up to help its members market their listings and host thousands of open houses.

It has established a new website – www.marealtoropenhouse.com – that will continue to be operational after next weekend.

In addition, on both a state and national level, field guides, flyers and banners and other marketing materials will be available to the Realtors.

For homebuyers, the MAR has included a list of 10 steps to buying a home in the consumer section of its website – www.marealtor.com.

Last year’s nationwide open house weekend was held in April, and more than 60 percent of its members participated.

This year, for the first time, the National Association of Realtors has partnered with 59 similar organizations across the globe in an effort to have open houses in every time zone.

The goal is to attain that same level of participation worldwide. Approximately 25 percent of the NAR membership is directly involved in global business.

The open house weekend will show the broad range of available housing and the broad range of values, said Ron Phipps of Westerly, R.I., NAR president.

“It’s very simple. We’ll have an endless open house during the daylight hours in an effort to drive buyers’ attention to the opportunity for home ownership around the globe,” said Phipps.

Shelter is a fundamental basic need, and it is universal, he declared.

In a videoconference last month with his French counterpart, Kirkor Ajderhanyan, Phipps said, “The nationwide open house highlights our larger agenda.”

Ajderhanyan is owner of Agence 107 Promenade in Nice and head of the international relations committee of the National Federation of Real Estate, French Riviera.

Shelter is a fundamental basic need.

– Ron Phipps, president

National Association of Realtors

Phipps continued: “In this country there is a second-guessing of the value of home ownership, and we’re really surprised and distracted by it because everybody needs shelter.

“This global open house will help reinforce that [fact] literally everywhere…and we want to make sure you don’t have that same governmental discouragement of ownership when it is simply the need for shelter,” Phipps said.

This week Phipps told the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity that some of the language in proposed legislation to reform the Federal Housing Administration would hurt homebuyers.

“While NAR supports efforts to strengthen FHA and reduce its market share…changes should not be made at consumers’ expense by drastically impacting the availability and cost of mortgage capital for millions of Americans, especially while the housing market recovery remains fragile,” Phipps testified.

Millions of qualified homebuyers have relied on FHA-insured loans to purchase a home, with as little as 3.5 percent down for borrowers with good credit.

He said accumulating the money needed for a down payment and closing costs has been the principal barrier to home ownership.

“Requiring a larger down payment does little to reduce risk of default compared to strong underwriting requirements and [would] put home ownership out of reach for many who have he income necessary to carry the cost of the home purchase.”

Phipps also spoke about the decreases in FHA loan limits scheduled to go into effect Oct. 1. (The maximum FHA loan in high-cost housing markets presently is $729,750 but will be reduced to $625,500. Boston’s conforming loan limit is $523,750, and that will drop too.)

The FHA mortgage loan limits currently in effect should be made permanent; decreasing the current limits would reduce the availability of mortgage loans across the country and also increase the cost of capital to consumers, Phipps told the committee.

“Allowing the current loan limits to decrease will have an immediate negative impact on mortgage availability.”

He added that the FHA “is the only government agency that operates entirely from self-generated income, costing taxpayers nothing. In fact, FHA programs have helped bring net revenue to the U.S. Treasury, helping reduce the budget deficit.”