- The rate of REO’s (real estate owned by the bank) coming onto the marketplace has slowed across the country.
- In May, sales prices for existing homes rose 3 percent from April levels.
- The number of Sold Homes surged in California, Nevada, Arizona and other hard hit area’s of the nation.
- Even in Las Vegas, the epicenter of the crash, sales prices are firming and seller’s are receiving near full asking price, albeit at a 50 percent discount to pre-crash levels.
- Inventory levels of existing and new homes has fallen in recent months.
- The doomsayers were wrong about runaway inflation and rising rates. 30 year fixed interest rates remain at a very attractive 5.5 percent and banks are lending money.
- Stocks of pubically traded home building companies have moved off their bottoms and are trading within a sustainable uptrend range.
- The number of housing starts increased for the first time in months. Since financing for speculation homes is hard, if not impossible to obtain, we assume these homes are already sold before construction begins, signaling demand.
- Large home builders are starting to acquire select tracts of land for future development.
- The rate of borrowers receiving notice of foreclosure has seen a meaningful decline of late.
Shiller Chills and Get Positive
July 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Real Estate Articles
Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows that prices are actually starting to rise again in some parts of the country. Cities like Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Minneapolis and San Francisco all have home prices on the rise.
“This is the first time in almost three years that we’ve seen price increases,” says Yale University professor Robert Shiller, who helped design the home price index. “So when we see a break in the downward trend that’s definitely encouraging news.”
“Well, I think the worst is probably behind us — the worst pace of decline,” he says. “We were going down at 2 percent a month for a number of months in a row nationally. That was really something. Now home prices relative to rents or construction costs are back at normal levels.”
Many Realtors are seeing multiple offers making some speculate that we have reached a housing bottom.
“Well, I think it very much depends on what city you’re in,” says William Wheaton, a housing economist at MIT. “There are really two types of markets right now.”
Wheaton notes that in states with 50% drops like Arizona, California and Florida that indeed we may be at a bottom.
“If you’re in a market like California, where prices have fallen 50 percent and transactions have picked up and you ask your friendly professor ‘Is this the bottom?’ I would say pretty much so,” Wheaton says.” If you could buy a house [for] 50 percent of what you could a few years ago, I’d say go ahead and buy it.”
Source: NPR
Housing First Monthly Gain in Three Years
July 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
Home prices in major U.S. cities registered the first monthly gain in nearly three years, according to a new report that provided fresh evidence that the severe U.S. housing downturn could be easing.
Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index, which tracks home prices in 20 metropolitan areas, rose 0.5% for the three-month period ending in May, compared with the three months ending in April. It marked the index’s first increase after 34 straight months of decline, and came after a variety of housing indicators has shown glimmers of hope for the past several months.
source: WSJ
Housing Supply Drops in Cali
July 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
The California supply of existing single-family homes for sale dropped to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 514,110. A six-month supply of homes for sale is considered a healthy balance between buyers and sellers, with anything less considered a seller’s market. It was only a year ago that unsold inventory index stood at 7.6 months.c
New Homes $ales Up 3rd Month in Row
July 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
Sales of new single family homes increased by 11% in June. Making a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000 units. This according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This increase marks a third consecutive month of improved sales activity.
“This is good news that indicates the nation’s housing market may be in the process of turning the corner,” said Joe Robson, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. “That said, the key to moving us out of recession is to get Americans back to work. Congress and the Administration should know that housing can be a significant generator of good jobs. We need to make housing a priority in the recovery process, otherwise we could continue to bounce along a bottom for some time.”
Recovery
July 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
The U.S. housing market has started to recover from the most far-reaching crisis since the Great Depression, data released Thursday show…Sales of previously occupied homes rose for the third month in a row in June, the National Association of Realtors reported. That hasn’t happened since early 2004, during the boom.
“The turnaround in the housing market appears finally to be here and indeed may be gaining some speed,” wrote Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc.
How to Know We Have Hit Bottom
July 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
10 Signs of a Bottom in Housing:
10 Noteworthy observations and signs include:
Source: http://www.infotube.net/blog/2009/07/10-signs-of-a-bottom-in-housing.html
Reasons To Buy a Home in 2009
July 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under Real Estate Articles
10 Reasons to buy a home before 2010.
- Tax Credit.
- Price Bottom happened in May/June. In the very low end market there are multiple offers now.
- There will be less foreclosures in 2010. Loans are getting modified and people are not being foreclosed on.
- Investors are coming back into the market. They have made the low end sizzle.
- Mortgage regulations are making it safer to own and less predatory.
- Once the mortgage is payed off you own it. You will have more money when you retire.
Get the rest from From Zillow.
Home Sales Up 3rd Month in a Row
July 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under Positive Real Estate
Existing-home sales rose for a third month in a row in June. NAR believes that prices may stabilize in many areas by the end of the year so long as inventories continue to decline.
Sales of resale homes, including single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 3.6 % from May to June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units — virtually the same as a year ago, NAR said.
“If we can keep the volume of sales above the level of new inventory, prices could stabilize in many areas around the end of the year,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a press release.
Robust Home Sales Crowding the News
July 18, 2009 by admin
Filed under Real Estate Articles
Jump into any newspaper from around the country and you get the great news. This is from todays Google News with the search term Home Sales. I wonder if this will be remembered as the season of regret for the fense sitters, or new beginnings?
Bay Area: Silicon Valley home sales at three-year high
Southern California: Home Sales Increase for 12th Straight Month
Birmingham Alabama: Birmingham area home sales perking up
San Francisco Home Sales Hit Highest in Three Years
Kansas City-area home sales rise from May
US July Homebuilder Confidence Rises to 10-Month High of 17
Idaho:Treasure Valley home sales and prices are up
Portland :Uptick in Portland home sales
Sacramento: New-home sales see biggest growth in two years
Home sales in Brooklyn, Queens rise
New Hampshire : NH home sales rise in June
Canada June Home Sales Rise 8.7%,
Virginia :Home sales in Hampton Roads increase strongly in June
Los Angeles Times Declares a Bottom
July 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under Pending Home Sales
Southern California median home sales price surged in June with sales volume reached a 30-month high. Prices increased to a new average of $265,000.
From the LA Times:
“Southern California home prices may have finally hit bottom, with median values rising last month for the first significant increase in two years, new data show.”
For the first time in 9 months fewer than half of the sales were foreclosures while the prices rose 6.4% in May.
“I think we can now say with fair degree of confidence the pace of real home price declines has slowed dramatically,” said Los Angeles economist Christopher Thornberg, who was an early predictor of the housing bubble.
“Sales in many higher-cost neighborhoods couldn’t have gotten much lower, so this recent uptick in activity should come as no surprise,” MDA DataQuick President John Walsh said. “The recession and problem mortgages are fueling more high-end distress, hence more high-end bargains.”
The percentage of homes that sold in June for more than $500,000 rose to about 20% of all homes purchased, up from 18% in May.
Additionally only 45% of the homes sold had been foreclosed upon, DataQuick said, the lowest percentage since July 2008. Foreclosures peaked at 57% of total sales in February. Escrow closed on a total of 23,262 new and resale houses and condominiums in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties last month. That was up 12% from 20,775 in May and up 29% from a year earlier.
Los Angeles County’s median home price in June was $320,000, up from $300,000 in May….In Orange County, the median price went from $410,000 in May to $418,000 in June…The median price in San Diego County rose from $295,000 in May to $314,000 in June.
