While people were distracted by Michael Jackson's death, the Cap and Trade Bill HR 2454 was passed in Congress. Part of this bill is a requirement for all home sales to be conditioned upon an energy audit and an energy rating assessment labeling program. How much additional selling costs will all sellers now be required to pay to comply with the proposed requirements? How much will sellers need to invest in older homes to bring them up to the required conditions? Will sellers will have enough equity in their house to do that and are they going to have cash to update their house. Will buyers agree to pay a higher price for the renovation or in this buyers market will sellers need to reduce their selling price and lose money? A lot of questions that no one wants to answer and we all know that the only way out of recession is to fix the housing market.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Dallas-Fort Worth home prices drop 5% in new report
Dallas-Fort Worth home prices showed no sign of a rebound in the latest Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index. Home prices dropped 5 percent in the D-FW area in April from a year earlier, according to the benchmark monthly survey. Prices fell 18.1 percent across the 20 U.S. metropolitan markets included in the report. Still, the rate of nationwide home price decline has improved slightly from record drops earlier this year, according to Case-Shiller researchers. "Furthermore, every metro area except Charlotte [N.C.] recorded an improvement in monthly returns over March," S&P's David M. Blitzer said in the report. "While one month's data cannot determine if a turnaround has begun, it seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Real Estate Won't Recover Until 2017
Commercial property values are in free-fall. Real estate's lost decade endures.
There's another bomb hidden in the real estate market, but unlike subprime mortgages, this one will take a decade to explode. Commercial properties--offices, hotels, malls--could suffer a wave of foreclosures like the one that hit the residential market last year, says Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkus. As tenants struggle to make rent, delinquencies are up, bringing down rents and values and hurting the already struggling secondhand market for mortgages that cover these properties.
Since many banks, insurers and investment funds hold those mortgage-backed bonds, they could be looking at steep losses in the next few years. This could signal new and unexpected writedowns for banks with commercial mortgage backers, including large players like Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) and Citigroup ( C - news - people ) as well as regional banks like Regions Financial ( RF - news - people ), SunTrust Banks ( STI - news - people )and Fifth Third Bancorp ( FITB - news - people ).
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
May foreclosures third highest on record
Government plan does not need time, it just simply is not working! Here is the article that I disagree with
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April's record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama's rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.
Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.
"There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that's simply unprecedented," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.
Temporary freezes on foreclosure activity ended in March. Failures of many seriously delinquent loans that were put on hold during those moratoria have been thrust back into the foreclosure cycle.
One in every 398 households with loans got a foreclosure filing in May. Filings, which include notices of default and auctions, were reported on 321,480 properties last month.
Stemming foreclosures is seen critical to bolstering home prices, consumer confidence and the recessionary U.S. economy.
Bank repossessions, known as real-estate owned or REOs, rose in May and should spike in coming months because the moratoria ended, RealtyTrac said.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Housing To The Rescue
Can housing turn the market around after Monday’s steep slide? Existing home sales for May are due tomorrow morning after trading begins. Economists expect an increase to 4.82 million sales from 4.68 million in April. That would be a 3% increase, slightly higher than last month’s 2.9% jump. Investors need some good news after the three major U.S. stock indexes fell by more than 2% each during the week’s first trading session after the World Bank lowered its economic forecast and commodities tanked. The rout came on top of last week’s declines, when the Dow fell 3%, the S&P 500 lost 2.6%. (See “Dow Slides 200 Points”)Sales of existing homes are expected to come in above last month's reading. Can that reverse the Dow's slide?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Best Cities To Get Ahead
Today, being able to "get by" financially is enough for most people. But others are looking for more. They're looking for a big break. Houston, recognized for its dynamic business environment, might be able to provide that. With high wages relative to cost of living and a fairly low unemployment rate of 6.3%, considering the financial turmoil over the last year, these factors make it the best city to get ahead. Other cities offering similar opportunities include Dallas,Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Boston. In Depth: Best Cities To Get Ahead It's not surprising that two Lone Star state cities come out on top. Houston boasts 20 of the best big companies in the country and 19 of the best small companies, according to Forbes' lists, including Sysco ( SYY - news - people ), human resources firm Administaff ( ASF - news - people ) and Noble Energy. ExxonMobil ( XOM - news - people ), Southwest Airlines ( LUV - news - people ) and Texas Instruments (TXN - news - people )--along with 15 other top companies--call Dallas home.Look here if you're willing to work hard to ride out the recession.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
D-FW foreclosure postings hit new high
Dallas-Fort Worth area home foreclosure postings are hitting new highs, with more than 6,000 properties set for sale next month. That’s a 62 percent jump from a year ago, according to Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service. The latest tally of foreclosure postings easily topped the last record of just over 5,500 filings for May’s auctions. Many of the current filings are homes that have been previously scheduled for foreclosure but were not sold at auction by the lenders, Foreclosure Listing Service reports. So far this year, more than 35,000 D-FW home foreclosure filings have been recorded – a 20 percent rise from the first seven months of 2008, Foreclosure Listing Service said Thursday. In Dallas County, currently 2,579 homes are threatened with foreclosure – 56 percent more than a year ago.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Study: More than 30% of Dallas-area home sellers have to cut price
More than 30 percent of Dallas-area home sellers have to cut their price at least once, according to a new study.
Dallas had one of the highest home-price reduction levels in the country, the report by Internet real estate firm Trulia Inc. said Friday.
And almost 40 percent of sellers of higher priced homes here – those offered for $1 million and more – have been forced to trim their asking price, the research shows.
Nationwide, about 23.6 percent of home listings have had at least one price rollback, the just-released survey says.
The average price cut across the country is 10.6 percent.
But in the Dallas area, sellers prune their prices by about 8 percent.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Dallas-Fort Worth pre-owned home sales fall 24%
North Texas pre-owned home sales dived by almost a quarter in May compared to a year earlier. But even with the big decline, median prices were down only a fraction, according to statistics released Monday. Real estate agents sold just under 6,000 pre-owned single-family homes last month, Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems reported. It was the lowest home sales total for the month since 2000. Through the first five months of 2009, pre-owned, single-family home sales in North Texas have fallen by 24 percent from the same period of last year, and condo sales are off 33 percent.
Friday, May 29, 2009
HUD: Tax Credit Can Be Used on Closing Costs
A good news for first time home buyers.
Under the guidance, FHA-approved lenders can develop bridge loans that home buyers can use to help cover their closing costs, buy down their interest rate, or put down more than the minimum 3.5 percent.
The loans can't be used to cover the minimum 3.5 percent, senior HUD officials told reporters on a conference call Friday morning.
Thus, buyers applying for FHA-backed financing with an FHA-approved lender that offers a bridge-loan program can get a bridge loan to bring down the upfront costs of buying a home significantly but would still have to come up with the minimum 3.5 percent down payment.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Dallas home prices down 5.6%, second lowest decline among the metropolitan areas
The pace of Dallas home prices declines increased in the first quarter – down almost 6 percent from a year earlier. The year-over-year decline was the largest reported for the Dallas area in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller monthly index benchmark. The 5.6 percent Dallas area home price drop was still just a fraction of the almost 19 percent nationwide annual decline in values, the researchers said Tuesday. All 20 of the U.S. metropolitan areas in the Case-Shiller index showed drops in prices.. Some economists have recently been forecasting that nationwide home prices will soon rebound. “Based on the March data, however, we see no evidence that a recovery in home prices has begun,” S&P’s David M. Blitzer said in the new report. “All 20 metro areas are still showing negative annual rates of change in average home prices with nine of the metro areas having record annual declines.” The steepest annual home price drop was recorded in Phoenix with a 36 percent decline. And prices in Las Vegas were down 31.2 percent in March from a year ago. The smallest price decline was recorded in Denver – down 5.5 percent. And Dallas had the second lowest decline at 5.6 percent.There is a good news in the bad news. Dallas had the second lowest decline in price at 5.6 percent after Denver 5.5. Great time to buy and invest.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Home Sellers, Please Relax
Good practical advises for sellers in this article. We are still not on the bottom, so if you would like to sell, price aggressively in order to excite the byers pool and generate multiple offers, instead you prise high on old fassion way and negotiate the price down, if some offer come across.
What's the rush? Home sales are starting to stabilize, so why push into a bad deal?
Report: Dallas-Fort Worth is No. 2 in new-home sales, starts
Despite huge cuts in the residential construction business, Dallas-Fort Worth still ranks second in the country in new-home sales and starts. Only Houston had more new-house construction and sales during the 12-month period ending in March, housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. said Tuesday in a new report. "I expect the D-FW area and Houston to continue to lead the nation in new-home starts and closings," said David Brown, who heads Metrostudy's Dallas office. "Even though activity has fallen off dramatically, the slowdown in Dallas-Fort Worth and other Texas markets is not nearly as severe as other markets around the country.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Report: Dallas-Fort Worth is No. 2 in new-home sales, starts
Despite huge cuts in the residential construction business, Dallas-Fort Worth still ranks second in the country in new-home sales and starts. Only Houston had more new-house construction and sales during the 12-month period ending in March, housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. said Tuesday in a new report. "I expect the D-FW area and Houston to continue to lead the nation in new-home starts and closings," said David Brown, who heads Metrostudy's Dallas office. "Even though activity has fallen off dramatically, the slowdown in Dallas-Fort Worth and other Texas markets is not nearly as severe as other markets around the country. "Dallas-Fort Worth and Texas have not been as severely affected by the recession as other regions of the country," he said. "Consequently, consumer confidence is much stronger in our region than any other area in the country." Builders have cut the number of home starts in North Texas more than 50 percent in the last year because of the housing sector decline and slumping national economy.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Home Sales Figures Offer Glimmers Of Hope
Acceptance of lower prices by sellers could indicate bottom is near.
Dark clouds are still looming ominously over homes sales in 25 large housing markets, but a silver lining is starting to shine through, especially in California. That's according to data released Thursday by Radar Logic, a New York-based data provider.
The good news-bad news numbers indicate that California homeowners who are not under severe pressure to sell are nevertheless starting to accept lower bids. Such sales are considered vital before local housing markets can find their bottoms. Owners who fit this description include those who are neither in possession of foreclosed properties or face severe pressure to sell from the home's mortgage lender.
Read more>
Friday, May 15, 2009
Big Improvement to First-Time Buyer Tax Credit
Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Tuesday said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment.
Previously, most buyers wouldn't receive the funds until after they filed their tax return, and that deterred some people from using the credit. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® has been calling for the change.
“We all want to enable FHA consumers to access the home buyer tax credit funds when they close on their home loans so that the cash can be used as a down payment,” Donovan says. His remarks came in an address to several thousand REALTORS® gathered Tuesday morning at "The Real Estate Summit: Advancing the U.S. Economy," at the 2009 REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington, D.C..
Read more>
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Foreclosures up 32% since April 2008
The number of foreclosures nationwide increased by 32 percent compared to the same time last year and by 1 percent in April compared to the previous month, RealtyTrac said Wednesday.
The online company reported 342,038 foreclosures, which includes default notices, auction-sale notices and bank repossessions.
RealtyTrac officials said the report shows one in every 374 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in April, the highest monthly rate since the company started tracking them in January 2005.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tax Credit Can Be Used for Down Payment
Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Tuesday said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment.
Previously, most buyers wouldn't receive the funds until after they filed their tax return, and that deterred some people from using the credit. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® has been calling for the change.
Read more>
Friday, May 1, 2009
92% of Dallas County homes to get lower or flat appraisals for '09, official says
For Dallas County commissioners, the news Tuesday about this year's tax roll was bleak but not unexpected: Home foreclosures, declining building permits and high office vacancy rates will combine to send property values downward for the first time in years.
And that means fewer property tax dollars flowing into county coffers during a particularly brutal budget crisis.
For homeowners tired of seeing their values increase, however, it's good news. About 92 percent of all residential properties will either fall in value or remain the same, said Ken Nolan, the county's chief appraiser.
Read more here>
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Sales of Existing Homes Fell 3 Percent in March
After surging unexpectedly in February, home sales fell last month and prices took another double-digit tumble, according to industry data released today.
Sales of existing homes, including townhouses and condos, fell 3 percent in March compared with the previous month, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.57 million units. They were down 7 percent compared with the same period last year.
Sales fell the most in the Northeast, 8 percent, but were unchanged in the Midwest and down 4 percent in the West. Sales fell 1.7 percent in the South, which includes the Washington area.
Read more here>
Dallas-Fort Worth home foreclosure filings rise to record high
Home foreclosure filings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have risen to a record high, with more than 5,500 properties facing forced sale next month.
The number of houses threatened with foreclosure in May rose 25 percent from a year earlier, breaking all previous records, according to statistics released Thursday by Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service.
Worsening economic conditions have caused more homeowners to fall behind in their mortgage payments. But analysts with Foreclosure Listing Service say the biggest reason for the increase in postings in the last few months has been moratoriums on foreclosures put in place by many mortgage lenders.
"They have been reposting many of these properties every month because of the moratoriums," said George Roddy, Foreclosure Listing Service president. "They have no choice but to continue posting the properties for foreclosure while they negotiate with the borrowers."
Read more here>
Friday, April 17, 2009
What's on Dallas real estate investors' minds? Lots!
The biggest homebuilding slowdown on record has left the Dallas-Fort Worth area with lots of empty lots.
How many? Enough to last more than five years, according to the latest estimates.
"Home starts have declined almost 67 percent while the lot supply has fallen only 2 percent," said local housing analyst Ted Wilson.
For investors, those unwanted properties offer the potential for profit.
More than 90,000 vacant home sites are sitting ready to go – many in far suburban areas of Dallas-Fort Worth. And there's even more surplus residential land planned for housing developments that have been put on hold.
"It may take many years for those markets to work down the oversupply," said Wilson, who's with Residential Strategies Inc.
The glut of home lots and land has caused builders to take billions of dollars in financial write-offs and left some lenders holding the bag with shaky loans.
To read more click here>
Friday, April 10, 2009
Banks aren't reselling many foreclosed homes
A vast "shadow inventory" of foreclosed homes that banks are holding off the market could wreak havoc with the already battered real estate sector, industry observers say.
Lenders nationwide are sitting on hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that they have not resold or listed for sale, according to numerous data sources. And foreclosures, which banks unload at fire-sale prices, are a major factor driving home values down.
"We believe there are in the neighborhood of 600,000 properties nationwide that banks have repossessed but not put on the market," said Rick Sharga, vice president of RealtyTrac, which compiles nationwide statistics on foreclosures. "California probably represents 80,000 of those homes. It could be disastrous if the banks suddenly flooded the market with those distressed properties. You'd have further depreciation and carnage."
Read more here>
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Dallas-Fort Worth 1Q new home sales down 40%
Low interest rates and builder giveaways weren’t enough to lure buyers back to the new home market in the first quarter.
Sales of new homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were down 40 percent from the first three months of 2008, housing analyst MetroStudy Inc. said Tuesday.
Only about 4,200 new home sales were recorded in the area during the first quarter. That’s the lowest number of new homes sold in North Texas in more than a decade.
Read more here >
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Dallas-area home prices fall nearly 5%
Dallas-area home prices started the new year with an almost 5 percent drop in home prices.
But the local decline was the lowest among 20 cities included in the January Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
Nationwide home prices were down by a record 19 percent.
And 14 of the 20 cities included in the benchmark monthly survey had double digit price declines from a year earlier..
“Home prices, which peaked in mid-2006, continued their decline in 2009,” S&P’s David M. Blitzer said in the Tuesday report. “There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data.
“Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path.”
Read more here>
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Home Prices Rose in January
The federal government's gauge of home prices rose in January for the first time in 10 months. The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Tuesday that home prices increased 1.7% in January from the previous month, though they are still down about 10% from their April 2007 peak. The government noted that sales in January were "relatively low," which could skew the result.
Read more here>
Monday, March 23, 2009
Existing-Home Sales Rebound, but Prices Plunge
House sales are up, accordin Wall Street Jurnal article, but prices will keep going down, while the inventory is growing and foreclosures and short sales still keep coming on the market.
Existing-home sales rebounded in February, climbing above expectations, but prices plunged again.
Home resales climbed to a 4.72 million annual rate, a 5.1% increase from January's unrevised 4.49 million annual pace, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
Foreclosures and short sales reflect about 45% of total existing-home sales. Distressed properties are discounted, so the abundance of these sales prices new homes out of the market, discouraging construction and weakening the overall housing sector further.
With so many distressed sales, the median price for an existing home fell last month. At $165,400 in February, the median price was down 15.5% from $195,800 in February 2008. The median price in January this year was $164,800. The 15.5% plunge.
Read more here>
Friday, March 20, 2009
Housing Turnaround? Home Sales Up in March
Two reports released this week suggest that March was a solid month for the U.S. housing market, an unexpected turnaround for a housing market that had slowed down.
The National Association of Realtors reported that existing homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 6.92 million units in March, up from February's pace but below the year-ago level.
The Census Bureau said new home sales showed surprising strength as well. Buyers scooped up new homes at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.213 million units -- 13.8 percent higher than in February.
Both reports outdid analysts' expectations.
Wasn't the housing market supposed to be slowing down? Yes, analysts have been talking about an expected slowdown for the past year.
It's said that as interest rates go up, buyer interest wanes. Freddie Mac said the interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.32 percent, 0.39 percent higher than a year ago. So where's the slowdown?
Read more here>
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Dallas-Fort Worth pre-owned home sales fall 28%
Existing home sales in North Texas continued to fall in February from last year's levels, while median prices were essentially flat, according to a report released Tuesday.
North Texas sales of pre-owned, single-family homes amounted to 4,216 in February, 28 percent below their level in February 2008, according to preliminary figures from North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc. and Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center.
The 28 percent decline was in line with a 27 percent drop in January.
"Twenty-eight percent is a pretty big number," said Jim Gaines, an economist at the A&M center. "It is a reflection of how the recession is catching up now with Texas in full force."
The February median price of $136,350 fell 2 percent from the median price a year ago.
"That's not real bad; it's essentially flat," Gaines said.
Sales of condos and townhomes were down 31 percent in February from the same month last year, while the median price was off 1 percent.
Analysts say homebuyers remain skittish because of the economy.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area had 7,100 fewer jobs in January than in the same month last year. Although the local economy remains healthier than the U.S. economy as a whole, additional job losses are expected this year.
"We have heard anecdotally that it's difficult to convert shoppers into buyers," said Ted Wilson, a Dallas housing analyst with Residential Strategies. "People are obviously very nervous about the economy right now. There are a lot of people being noncommittal until they understand where this thing's going to bottom."
Monday, March 9, 2009
Report: More than 1 in 5 Dallas-area homeowners owe more than house is worth
The number of Dallas-area residents who owe more than their houses are worth is growing.
At the end of 2008, more than one in five Dallas-area homeowners – 21.1 percent – were underwater on their mortgages, according to a report released Wednesday by First American CoreLogic.
That's slightly higher than the U.S. average but well below the percentage of homeowners who have negative equity in states hard-hit in the housing slump, the California-based mortgage analyst said.
In Nevada, for instance, about 55 percent of homeowners with mortgages owe more than the value of their houses. And in Michigan, Arizona and Florida, more than a third are underwater.
The number of Fort Worth-area home mortgage owners who have negative equity, at 24.2 percent, is even higher than the Dallas figure, the researchers said.
The new report is a change from earlier studies that estimated about 16 percent of Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners with mortgages were underwater with their home loans. That was slightly less than the national average.
Read more here>
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Loan Modification Plan Gets Sweeter
U.S. Treasury's update on its $75 billion mortgage scheme to reach larger loans and incentives will spill over into other programs.
Like most government bailouts these days, the Obama administration's loan modification program seems to be getting more ambitious while some major questions remain unanswered.
The U.S. Treasury provided new details Tuesday about its $75 billion effort to rework up to 4 million distressed mortgages. While much of the plan resembles the skeletal version released two weeks earlier, a few surprises tucked in will increase the program's scope.
One of them: Struggling borrowers with mortgages up to $729,750--a higher ceiling than many experts had expected--will be eligible for the program. This will cast a much wider net by suddenly including more expensive homes common in high-cost areas.
As earlier disclosed, the program will use blunt cash incentives to get servicers, lenders, investors and borrowers to rework distressed mortgages into ones with lower more manageable payments equal to 38% of a borrower's income. Then Treasury will match interest rate reductions and also shoulder part of principal write-downs to get the payment down to 31%. But if they participate in the program, lenders no longer get to decide which loans they modify--they must use the government’s guidelines.
Friday, February 27, 2009
How To Renegotiate Your Lease
Variable costs like payroll, office supplies and advertising usually draw first blood in a recession. But some ostensibly fixed burdens are ripe for whittling, too, if you know how to negotiate. A big one: leased real estate.
In this market, even agreements inked for the next five or 10 years are open for negotiation. Indeed, landlords have all but come to expect the conversation.
"With the kinds of hits that most businesses have taken in sales, they can't afford to pay out at the occupancy rates they have been," says Ivan Friedman, chief executive of RCS Real Estate Advisors in Manhattan.
Read more here>
