The Associated Press
Don't take the latest snapshot of U.S. home prices too seriously.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday ticked up in July from June. But the gain is merely temporary, analysts say. They see home values taking a dive in many major markets well into next year.
That's because the peak home-buying season is now ending after a dismal summer. The hardest-hit markets, battered by foreclosures, are bracing for more homes sold at foreclosure or through short sales. A short sale is when a lender lets a homeowner sell for less than the mortgage is worth.
Add high unemployment and reluctant buyers, and the outlook in many areas is bleak. Nationally, home values are projected to fall 2.2% in the second half of the year, according to analysts surveyed by MacroMarkets. And Moody's Analytics predicts the Case-Shiller index will drop 8% within a year.
Read more here.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Arizona Business & Money
Sept. 27, 2010 07:26 AM
Bloomberg News
Howard Cohen hasn't paid the loan on his Tukwila, Wash., home in a year, and when he heard that Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit was suspending foreclosure evictions in 23 states, it gave him hope.
"Maybe I'll stay in my house, too," said Cohen, a 57- year-old commercial-loan broker.
An employee of Ally's GMAC unit said in a December 2009 deposition that he signed thousands of foreclosure documents without verifying their accuracy. Attorneys general in Iowa, Illinois and Texas are investigating.
"If uncovering such deficiencies halts thousands of pending foreclosures or renders void those that have already taken place, including repossessions of homes that have been resold, it could snarl courts for years and further postpone a recovery that can't happen until real estate prices find a bottom," said Stuart Saft, a partner at New York-based Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. Until home values start to rise, buyers will stay away, he said.
Read more here
Bloomberg News
Howard Cohen hasn't paid the loan on his Tukwila, Wash., home in a year, and when he heard that Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit was suspending foreclosure evictions in 23 states, it gave him hope.
"Maybe I'll stay in my house, too," said Cohen, a 57- year-old commercial-loan broker.
An employee of Ally's GMAC unit said in a December 2009 deposition that he signed thousands of foreclosure documents without verifying their accuracy. Attorneys general in Iowa, Illinois and Texas are investigating.
"If uncovering such deficiencies halts thousands of pending foreclosures or renders void those that have already taken place, including repossessions of homes that have been resold, it could snarl courts for years and further postpone a recovery that can't happen until real estate prices find a bottom," said Stuart Saft, a partner at New York-based Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. Until home values start to rise, buyers will stay away, he said.
Read more here
Monday, September 27, 2010
Canadians become top out-of-state homebuyers in Ariz.
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
The collapse in housing prices and a strong Canadian dollar are luring north-of-the-border buyers to Arizona and other states where the weather is warm and the housing cheap.
Canadians surpass Californians this year as top out-of-state buyers of Phoenix-area real estate. The Canadian dollar is gaining, up from an average of 80 cents on the U.S. dollar in 2005 to 97 cents last week. At the same time, home prices in the Phoenix area have dropped about 50% from their peak in early 2007.
"Parity in currency and falling home prices," says Gregory Tsujimoto, senior consultant at John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine, Calif. "Things have really lined up" for Canadian buyers, he says.
Florida, California and Texas remain the top destinations for international homebuyers, but Arizona is gaining.
Canadian homebuyers in Phoenix's Maricopa County made up a larger share than California buyers for eight of the past nine months, according to the Information Market, a Phoenix real estate data firm.
Read more here.
The collapse in housing prices and a strong Canadian dollar are luring north-of-the-border buyers to Arizona and other states where the weather is warm and the housing cheap.
Canadians surpass Californians this year as top out-of-state buyers of Phoenix-area real estate. The Canadian dollar is gaining, up from an average of 80 cents on the U.S. dollar in 2005 to 97 cents last week. At the same time, home prices in the Phoenix area have dropped about 50% from their peak in early 2007.
"Parity in currency and falling home prices," says Gregory Tsujimoto, senior consultant at John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine, Calif. "Things have really lined up" for Canadian buyers, he says.
Florida, California and Texas remain the top destinations for international homebuyers, but Arizona is gaining.
Canadian homebuyers in Phoenix's Maricopa County made up a larger share than California buyers for eight of the past nine months, according to the Information Market, a Phoenix real estate data firm.
Read more here.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The housing recession isn't over
By Paul R. La Monica, editor at largeSeptember 20, 2010: 1:31 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The worst is over for the housing market -- at least according to Wall Street.
Shares of home builder Lennar were up more than 6% Monday after the company reported a stronger-than-expected profit for the third quarter (it reported a loss a year ago) as well as a 14% increase in sales. Other builder stocks moved higher as well.
The S&P Homebuilders ETF, which includes shares of several housing-related stocks, has been rising on hopes that the real estate market has hit bottom.
The news that the recession that began in 2007 officially ended a year ago helped boost stocks too.
But while traders are popping champagne corks, it's better to take a closer look at the Lennar (LEN) report. The past three months may have been decent, but the future looks less promising.
For the housing market, at least, it doesn't look like the recession is over just yet.
Lennar admitted as much, saying that new home orders during the quarter were down 15% from the same period last year.
In a statement, Lennar CEO Stuart Miller conceded that while his firm was holding up better than some rivals, "high unemployment and foreclosures have continued to present challenges for the national housing market."
Read more here.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The worst is over for the housing market -- at least according to Wall Street.
Shares of home builder Lennar were up more than 6% Monday after the company reported a stronger-than-expected profit for the third quarter (it reported a loss a year ago) as well as a 14% increase in sales. Other builder stocks moved higher as well.
The S&P Homebuilders ETF, which includes shares of several housing-related stocks, has been rising on hopes that the real estate market has hit bottom.
The news that the recession that began in 2007 officially ended a year ago helped boost stocks too.
But while traders are popping champagne corks, it's better to take a closer look at the Lennar (LEN) report. The past three months may have been decent, but the future looks less promising.
For the housing market, at least, it doesn't look like the recession is over just yet.
Lennar admitted as much, saying that new home orders during the quarter were down 15% from the same period last year.
In a statement, Lennar CEO Stuart Miller conceded that while his firm was holding up better than some rivals, "high unemployment and foreclosures have continued to present challenges for the national housing market."
Read more here.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
U.S. home prices fell 0.5% in July
Sept. 22, 2010 08:09 AM
Bloomberg News
Sept. 22 -- U.S. home prices dropped 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, the eighth consecutive decline, as foreclosed properties flooded the market.
Prices fell 0.5 percent from June, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today. Economists had projected prices to fall 0.2 percent from the previous month, based on the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The agency revised the previously reported May-to-June decline to 1.2 percent from 0.3 percent.
Foreclosures are boosting the supply of available properties and reducing prices, even as mortgage rates tumble to record lows. The time it would take to clear the market of homes for sale was 12.5 months in July, the highest in more than a decade of data, according to the National Association of Realtors. Banks seized a record 95,364 properties from delinquent borrowers in August, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing data.
"We have a lot of homes for sale, and a lot of them are distressed properties," said Thomas Lawler, founder and president of Lawler Housing and Economic Consulting in Leesburg, Virginia. "That is putting downward pressure on home prices."
Read more here.
Bloomberg News
Sept. 22 -- U.S. home prices dropped 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, the eighth consecutive decline, as foreclosed properties flooded the market.
Prices fell 0.5 percent from June, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today. Economists had projected prices to fall 0.2 percent from the previous month, based on the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The agency revised the previously reported May-to-June decline to 1.2 percent from 0.3 percent.
Foreclosures are boosting the supply of available properties and reducing prices, even as mortgage rates tumble to record lows. The time it would take to clear the market of homes for sale was 12.5 months in July, the highest in more than a decade of data, according to the National Association of Realtors. Banks seized a record 95,364 properties from delinquent borrowers in August, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing data.
"We have a lot of homes for sale, and a lot of them are distressed properties," said Thomas Lawler, founder and president of Lawler Housing and Economic Consulting in Leesburg, Virginia. "That is putting downward pressure on home prices."
Read more here.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Foreclosures still driving region's home prices down
by J. Craig Anderson - Sept. 21, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
The median sale price of existing Phoenix-area homes declined in August for the third consecutive month, according to an Arizona State University report.
Reasons for the downward trend include a combination of the expected and the unexpected, according to the report's author, Jay Butler, an associate professor of real estate at ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business.
Butler said it's typical for median home prices to decline in the latter months of the year, as homebuying activity takes a backseat to preparations for school and holidays.
Read more here.
The Arizona Republic
The median sale price of existing Phoenix-area homes declined in August for the third consecutive month, according to an Arizona State University report.
Reasons for the downward trend include a combination of the expected and the unexpected, according to the report's author, Jay Butler, an associate professor of real estate at ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business.
Butler said it's typical for median home prices to decline in the latter months of the year, as homebuying activity takes a backseat to preparations for school and holidays.
Read more here.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
State's housing prices dipped in 2nd quarter
by Howard Fischer - Sept. 16, 2010 12:00 AM
Capitol Media Services
Housing prices nationwide are finally starting to go up. But not in Arizona.
New figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency indicate the average price of a home that sold in Arizona in the second quarter of the year dipped about 1.7 percent from the first quarter.
That brings the year-over-year price drop to more than 8.2 percent. Only Idaho, where prices dropped by 11 percent, fared worse on an annual basis.
By contrast, the situation appears to be improving in much of the rest of the country.
Nationally, home prices went up 0.9 percent from the first to the second quarter. But that still leaves the annual change in negative territory at 1.6 percent.
The figures are considered a good indicator of housing prices because they're based on a repeat-sales index.
The report measures the prices on about 6 million homes whose mortgages have been purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and for which there are records of prior sales going back to 1975.
Read more here.
Capitol Media Services
Housing prices nationwide are finally starting to go up. But not in Arizona.
New figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency indicate the average price of a home that sold in Arizona in the second quarter of the year dipped about 1.7 percent from the first quarter.
That brings the year-over-year price drop to more than 8.2 percent. Only Idaho, where prices dropped by 11 percent, fared worse on an annual basis.
By contrast, the situation appears to be improving in much of the rest of the country.
Nationally, home prices went up 0.9 percent from the first to the second quarter. But that still leaves the annual change in negative territory at 1.6 percent.
The figures are considered a good indicator of housing prices because they're based on a repeat-sales index.
The report measures the prices on about 6 million homes whose mortgages have been purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and for which there are records of prior sales going back to 1975.
Read more here.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Investing in Foreclosures is a Great way to Make MONEY!
Buying foreclosed homes at auction is a great way to replenish your income. Phoenix , AZ has a huge market of foreclosed homes where you can fix and flip. Bid AZ Foreclosures is a great bidding company that can help you with purchasing a foreclosed home. Contact Mike O'Shaughnessy @ 602-300-4979 or Jeff Howard @ 623-512-3470. and/or go to BidAZForeclosures.com
Friday, September 10, 2010
Real Estate Outlook: Consumer Confidence
by Kenneth R. Harney
After a few weeks in August where the economic and housing outlooks have been a little sobering - even grim - the numbers at the beginning of September are looking increasingly positive.
Take consumer confidence. We all know how important that is for economic activity and future housing sales. Well, the latest survey from the University of Michigan came in with a one point jump in overall confidence, after months of declines.
That may sound modest, and it is, but after so many bad headlines about the economy, it's a step in the right direction.
And indeed, the latest Commerce Department study finds that consumer spending is on the upswing, and just registered the biggest pickup in four months.
Meanwhile, there was surprisingly strong news from the industrial manufacturing front, which is a key factor for future employment growth: The Institute for Supply Management reported a one point gain in its manufacturing index for the latest month - which was enough of a shock to doom-and-gloom analysts on Wall Street that the stock market soared on the news.
On the housing front there were even more encouraging numbers:
After a few weeks in August where the economic and housing outlooks have been a little sobering - even grim - the numbers at the beginning of September are looking increasingly positive.
Take consumer confidence. We all know how important that is for economic activity and future housing sales. Well, the latest survey from the University of Michigan came in with a one point jump in overall confidence, after months of declines.
That may sound modest, and it is, but after so many bad headlines about the economy, it's a step in the right direction.
And indeed, the latest Commerce Department study finds that consumer spending is on the upswing, and just registered the biggest pickup in four months.
Meanwhile, there was surprisingly strong news from the industrial manufacturing front, which is a key factor for future employment growth: The Institute for Supply Management reported a one point gain in its manufacturing index for the latest month - which was enough of a shock to doom-and-gloom analysts on Wall Street that the stock market soared on the news.
On the housing front there were even more encouraging numbers:
- Pending home sales , which had been sliding since the phase-out of the tax credits last spring, rose by 5.2 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors.
- Also, the Standard and Poor's /Case-Shiller index reported that home prices in the top 20 metropolitan areas gained 4.2 percent year over year. Prices were up in 15 of the 20, including some big gains in California and elsewhere.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Phoenix housing market lacks supply of homebuyers
Few homes are selling. Prices keep dropping.
In the metro Phoenix housing market, it's all a simple matter of supply and demand: too many homes for sale and not enough buyers.
Of the people who are buying homes, more than a third are investors, snapping up mostly foreclosure homes at bargain prices and turning them into rentals. The number of houses on the market remains high, partly because many traditional homebuyers just aren't buying.
Some of them want to buy - but can't.
Mortgage requirements are tighter now than they have been in a generation, and many people who would like to get into the market can't qualify.
Some of them can buy - but won't.
Many renters today see friends and relatives burned by the housing collapse who now owe more than their homes are worth.
Read more here.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Foreclosure market a ‘feeding frenzy’ for flipping houses
So says Colorado Springs, Colo., real estate agent Shawn Jardine in a recent article from the Christian Science Monitor:
“It’s a feeding frenzy right now. On one property listed for $65,000, I had 15 offers. The best offer won at $20,000 over asking price.”Wholesalers, which are basically investors with lots of money who can buy in bulk, are “snapping up” a healthy chunk of the best distressed property deals currently available on the market.
It’s common these days for wholesalers to swoop in and make all-cash offers, making it difficult for first-time homebuyers and other “small-time” investors to land their deals.
With the nationwide housing market riddled with bargains, and a volatile stock market, wholesalers are literally banking on the notion that the market will eventually rebound. Perhaps not to pre-collapse levels anytime soon, but nonetheless, it’s bound to happen.
Read more here.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Phoenix aiming to ease foreclosure-home blight
A new program to lessen the blight from too many vacant and neglected foreclosure homes is being tested in west Phoenix.
A few weeks ago, Phoenix's Neighborhood Services Department began closely monitoring foreclosure homes in the area between 75th and 91st avenues and Thomas and Camelback roads. A city inspector checks houses about to be foreclosed on or already in foreclosure for common signs of neglect: tall weeds and grass, dead plants, abandoned vehicles, junk and litter, open windows or doors, broken fences and graffiti.
A few weeks ago, Phoenix's Neighborhood Services Department began closely monitoring foreclosure homes in the area between 75th and 91st avenues and Thomas and Camelback roads. A city inspector checks houses about to be foreclosed on or already in foreclosure for common signs of neglect: tall weeds and grass, dead plants, abandoned vehicles, junk and litter, open windows or doors, broken fences and graffiti.
Banks giving gov't, non-profits chance to buy foreclosures
By Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
WASHINGTON — Major banks are agreeing to give local governments and non-profit groups the ability to buy foreclosed homes before they are sold to private investors.
The Obama administration says local officials could benefit from acquiring these properties and using the land for redevelopment projects. Congress has provided $7 billion in money to buy the homes.
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