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Showing posts with label rebound. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rebound. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Confidence Index for February 2013
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Rising home prices bring 700,000 homeowners above water
DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS July 17, 2012 |  |
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Rising home prices bring 700,000 homeowners above waterCoreLogic: Negative equity concentrated among homes under $200,000 By Inman NewsInman News®
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Rising home prices helped more than 700,000 homeowners regain equity in their homes during first quarter, but 11.4 million borrowers still owed more on their mortgage than their homes were worth, according to the latest report from data aggregator CoreLogic.The number of U.S homeowners with negative equity declined by 6 percent in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter, leaving 23.7 percent of all homes with mortgages underwater. That's down from 25.2 percent in the fourth quarter. When the 2.3 million borrowers with less than 5 percent equity, which CoreLogic calls "near-negative equity," are included, 28.5 percent of mortgaged homes were either underwater or nearly underwater in the first quarter, down from 30.1 percent. All told, negative equity nationwide totaled $691 billion in the first quarter, down from $742 billion the previous quarter. The decrease was largely due to home-price increases, CoreLogic said. "In the first quarter of 2012, rebounding home prices, a healthier balance of real estate supply and demand, and a slowing share of distressed sales activity helped to reduce the negative equity share," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, in a statement. "This is a meaningful improvement that is driven by quickly improving outlooks in some of the hardest-hit markets. While the overall stagnating economic recovery will likely slow housing market recovery in the second half of this year, reducing the number of underwater households is an important step toward reducing future mortgage default risk." Some 1.9 million borrowers were only 5 percent upside down in the first quarter, meaning further price appreciation could move them into positive territory. Among states, Nevada had the highest share of mortgaged loans in negative equity (61 percent) followed by Florida (45 percent), Arizona (43 percent), Georgia (37 percent) and Michigan (35 percent), CoreLogic said.  Negative equity is concentrated at the low end of the market, CoreLogic said. Among homes under $200,000, 31 percent were upside down, compared with 15.9 percent among homes worth more than $200,000. The majority of the underwater homeowners -- 6.9 million -- had only a first mortgage with no home equity loans, and owed an average of $212,000 on their mortgages with negative equity averaging $47,000. While 19 percent of these borrowers were underwater in the first quarter, the negative equity share among borrowers with both first liens and second liens was more than twice that, 39 percent. Those 4.5 million borrowers owed an average of $299,000 and were underwater by an average of $82,000. Starting with this report, CoreLogic revised the methodology it uses to calculate negative equity and has therefore revised its historical data for both the nation and states. Below are revised figures beginning with the third quarter of 2009.
Copyright 2012 Inman News
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Monday, April 16, 2012
Foreclosure activity hits lowest level since Q4 2007
Paste in your browser if can't open the link:
http://lowes.inman.com/newsletter/2012/04/16/news/184855
Lot of great information - long article.
http://lowes.inman.com/newsletter/2012/04/16/news/184855
Lot of great information - long article.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Phoenix in the middle of recovery
Realty Times of May 8, 2009
Hot Market: Phoenix in the middle of recovery by M. Anthony Carr
A year ago, I covered the Phoenix market in this column, saying that comparing April '08 to April '07, it looked like this western market had hit bottom – sales were up 15 percent year-over-year. That prediction, seems to have been right on the nose as nearly 12 months later, sales are up a whopping 78 percent from March 2008 to March 2009.
With listings down 17 percent for the metro area, sales are siphoning off inventory and buyers are picking deals at prices they haven't seen in more than 5 years, according to blogger Ron Wilczek, West USA Realty "Another notable fact is that the year over year (YOY) sales are up for the 10th consecutive month," blogs Wilczek. "One more notable fact: the year over year over year (YOYOY) sales are up for the fourth consecutive month. I admit that I "made up" that last statistical category. But essentially it means that the sales in March 2009, February 2009, January 2009 and December 2008 were all higher than the same months for the last two years."
The foreclosure sale dominates the market, but may be a necessary evil to jump-start one of the largest markets in the southwest. Wilczek says foreclosure sales make up more than 75 percent for March 2009.
"Though March's percentage was a slight increase from February 2009's, the percentage of Phoenix foreclosure sales (Valley wide) has remained relatively stable over the last three months," he says. "This is a change from the trend we saw starting in June 2007 and lasting until December 2008. Foreclosure properties during that time sold at a steadily increasing rate each month -- sometimes by a substantial amount."
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
Hot Market: Phoenix in the middle of recovery by M. Anthony Carr
A year ago, I covered the Phoenix market in this column, saying that comparing April '08 to April '07, it looked like this western market had hit bottom – sales were up 15 percent year-over-year. That prediction, seems to have been right on the nose as nearly 12 months later, sales are up a whopping 78 percent from March 2008 to March 2009.
With listings down 17 percent for the metro area, sales are siphoning off inventory and buyers are picking deals at prices they haven't seen in more than 5 years, according to blogger Ron Wilczek, West USA Realty "Another notable fact is that the year over year (YOY) sales are up for the 10th consecutive month," blogs Wilczek. "One more notable fact: the year over year over year (YOYOY) sales are up for the fourth consecutive month. I admit that I "made up" that last statistical category. But essentially it means that the sales in March 2009, February 2009, January 2009 and December 2008 were all higher than the same months for the last two years."
The foreclosure sale dominates the market, but may be a necessary evil to jump-start one of the largest markets in the southwest. Wilczek says foreclosure sales make up more than 75 percent for March 2009.
"Though March's percentage was a slight increase from February 2009's, the percentage of Phoenix foreclosure sales (Valley wide) has remained relatively stable over the last three months," he says. "This is a change from the trend we saw starting in June 2007 and lasting until December 2008. Foreclosure properties during that time sold at a steadily increasing rate each month -- sometimes by a substantial amount."
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
First-time Buyers - Rescue Housing Market
From Realty Times March 3, 2009
First-time Buyers Must Rescue Housing Market
by Jim Adair
First-time buyers drove Canada's decade-long housing boom and they will lead the market out of the current downturn, says Phil Soper, president and CEO of Brookfield Real Estate Services. Brookfield owns the Royal LePage and La Capitale brands in Canada, and it recently acquired GMAC Real Estate, which has almost 17,000 sales reps in Canada and the United States.
Speaking at a recent Scotiabank forum, Soper said first-time buyers represented almost 70 per cent of the market when it peaked in 2007. Now they account for about 40 per cent of all transactions.
"Like stalled credit, the cycle of buyers and sellers grinds to a halt when first-time buyers disengage," said Soper. "It's like sand in the gears of the real estate market." He said young new buyers allow entry-level homeowners to move up to larger homes as children arrive, and in turn that helps mid-price owners aspire to more luxurious homes. "But without mover-uppers, they are stuck," said Soper.
He said it's going to take lower home prices and "transactional risk mitigation" to make first-timers start buying again. That is already being helped by dropping prices and historically low mortgage interest rates. Government incentives such as those announced in the recent federal budget will also help, he said.
The risk mitigation is helped by the return of conditional offers. During the boom, potential buyers often found themselves in bidding wars for desirable properties, and had to submit "clean" offers without any strings attached. With the softer market, now offers are being accepted with conditions on such things as successfully obtaining financing and home inspections.
Soper says the real estate industry is also seeing a shift away from the traditional "listing side" of the transaction and more to a focus on buyers. Buyer agency is growing, and brokerages are holding events such as first-time buyer seminars to help educate those entering the market. He says seller-driven contractual offers are also increasing to try and seal a deal.
Noting that housing markets have traditionally rebounded well after a recession, Soper predicted the current downturn would last about seven quarters, the same as the market correction in 1989/90. That would mean the market would flatten in the third quarter of this year and start its recovery in the fourth quarter.
Soper's forecast is more optimistic than that of his Scotiabank hosts.
Addressing the overall economy, chief economist Warren Jestin said, "The worst of the bad news will be in the first six months of this year, and next year the good news will outweigh the bad news." But he said it will be a long recovery that "may linger beyond 2010."
Senior economist Adrienne Warren said, "Another 15 to 20 per cent decline in the volume of resales is likely this year, with a further 10 per cent drop in average prices. Centres with the largest supply-demand imbalance, including Vancouver, Sudbury (Ont.) and Calgary, have relatively greater downside risk."
But she repeated what most observers have been saying about the Canadian housing market all along – that as bad as it gets in Canada, the situation is better here than in the U.S. There were far fewer subprime mortgages issued in Canada than the U.S., and the number of mortgage defaults in Canada still lingers near a record low, at about one-third of one per cent. Canadians also have more equity in their homes than their U.S. counterparts – almost 70 per cent, compared to about 45 per cent in the U.S. – reducing the risk of foreclosure.
Despite the introduction of a tax credit in the federal budget to promote renovation activity, Warren says the outlook for the renovation industry is "somewhat mixed." Spending on home improvements and alterations in Canada was close to $40 billion last year, about the same as was spent on new construction.
"The main factors behind the boom in renovations in recent years – record existing home sales, rising home prices and equity, high new home prices, record homeownership rates, an aged housing stock, and strong job and income growth – are no longer supportive," says Warren. "Renovation expenditures are typically highly cyclical, as are other areas of big-ticket discretionary spending. Job worries and a tendency for households to boost savings in today's uncertain economic and financial climate will likely trump the desire to undertake a significant new home renovation."
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
First-time Buyers Must Rescue Housing Market
by Jim Adair
First-time buyers drove Canada's decade-long housing boom and they will lead the market out of the current downturn, says Phil Soper, president and CEO of Brookfield Real Estate Services. Brookfield owns the Royal LePage and La Capitale brands in Canada, and it recently acquired GMAC Real Estate, which has almost 17,000 sales reps in Canada and the United States.
Speaking at a recent Scotiabank forum, Soper said first-time buyers represented almost 70 per cent of the market when it peaked in 2007. Now they account for about 40 per cent of all transactions.
"Like stalled credit, the cycle of buyers and sellers grinds to a halt when first-time buyers disengage," said Soper. "It's like sand in the gears of the real estate market." He said young new buyers allow entry-level homeowners to move up to larger homes as children arrive, and in turn that helps mid-price owners aspire to more luxurious homes. "But without mover-uppers, they are stuck," said Soper.
He said it's going to take lower home prices and "transactional risk mitigation" to make first-timers start buying again. That is already being helped by dropping prices and historically low mortgage interest rates. Government incentives such as those announced in the recent federal budget will also help, he said.
The risk mitigation is helped by the return of conditional offers. During the boom, potential buyers often found themselves in bidding wars for desirable properties, and had to submit "clean" offers without any strings attached. With the softer market, now offers are being accepted with conditions on such things as successfully obtaining financing and home inspections.
Soper says the real estate industry is also seeing a shift away from the traditional "listing side" of the transaction and more to a focus on buyers. Buyer agency is growing, and brokerages are holding events such as first-time buyer seminars to help educate those entering the market. He says seller-driven contractual offers are also increasing to try and seal a deal.
Noting that housing markets have traditionally rebounded well after a recession, Soper predicted the current downturn would last about seven quarters, the same as the market correction in 1989/90. That would mean the market would flatten in the third quarter of this year and start its recovery in the fourth quarter.
Soper's forecast is more optimistic than that of his Scotiabank hosts.
Addressing the overall economy, chief economist Warren Jestin said, "The worst of the bad news will be in the first six months of this year, and next year the good news will outweigh the bad news." But he said it will be a long recovery that "may linger beyond 2010."
Senior economist Adrienne Warren said, "Another 15 to 20 per cent decline in the volume of resales is likely this year, with a further 10 per cent drop in average prices. Centres with the largest supply-demand imbalance, including Vancouver, Sudbury (Ont.) and Calgary, have relatively greater downside risk."
But she repeated what most observers have been saying about the Canadian housing market all along – that as bad as it gets in Canada, the situation is better here than in the U.S. There were far fewer subprime mortgages issued in Canada than the U.S., and the number of mortgage defaults in Canada still lingers near a record low, at about one-third of one per cent. Canadians also have more equity in their homes than their U.S. counterparts – almost 70 per cent, compared to about 45 per cent in the U.S. – reducing the risk of foreclosure.
Despite the introduction of a tax credit in the federal budget to promote renovation activity, Warren says the outlook for the renovation industry is "somewhat mixed." Spending on home improvements and alterations in Canada was close to $40 billion last year, about the same as was spent on new construction.
"The main factors behind the boom in renovations in recent years – record existing home sales, rising home prices and equity, high new home prices, record homeownership rates, an aged housing stock, and strong job and income growth – are no longer supportive," says Warren. "Renovation expenditures are typically highly cyclical, as are other areas of big-ticket discretionary spending. Job worries and a tendency for households to boost savings in today's uncertain economic and financial climate will likely trump the desire to undertake a significant new home renovation."
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
Housing Positioned For Growth
From Realty Times on March 3, 2009
Real Estate Outlook: Housing Positioned For Growth
by Kenneth R. Harney
No economist has more information at his or her disposal than Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and what he told Congress last week should be encouraging news for anyone interested in real estate: The recession that has gripped the country painfully for 18 months will "end" later this year - moving us into positive economic growth.
In the meantime, housing may be better positioned than other major industries. That's because there appears to be significant interest in the improved $8.000, nonrepayable home buyer tax credit plus a historically-favorable combination of low interest rates and rolled-back home prices.
In a new research report, the National Association of Home Builders found that affordability of houses is now at its best level in years. The association's "Housing Opportunity Index" -- which measures the percentage of homes sold in local markets around the country that are affordable to families earning area median incomes -- hit a near-record 62.4 percent in the most recent quarter for which data is available.
By contrast a year earlier, the index was at 47, meaning that less than half of households could afford to buy a median priced home. During the boom years it was even worse.
Although rising unemployment is a sobering counter-trend, the improvement in affordability may be setting the stage for a real estate rebound -- even if monthly ebbs and flows in sales look gloomy in the first quarter of the year .
Mortgage rates continue to hover in the mid-5 percent range for 30-year fixed rate loans. Fifteen year rates are at 4.7 percent.
While average prices of homes continue to decline on a national basis, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, dozens of local markets -- most of them ignored by widely-publicized surveys such as Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index -- continue to show net positive selling price performance.
According to the agency's latest quarterly survey, local markets in much of Texas registered higher prices year-to-year, along with parts of the Carolinas, the Northeast, and the Gulf states.
For example, houses selling in Austin, Texas, were up 4.4 percent over last year. In Boulder, Colorado, the average gain was 3 percent. In Houston 3.7 percent; Decatur, Alabama 6.6 percent; Kingsport-Bristol Tennessee 6.3 percent; and Syracuse, New York 3 percent.
You don't hear about these positives because these areas were lower profile during the boom, never experienced a bust, and are just not on the New York radar screens.
But they're for real, and their moderate, sensible growth patterns may be where we're headed in real estate this year.
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
Real Estate Outlook: Housing Positioned For Growth
by Kenneth R. Harney
No economist has more information at his or her disposal than Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and what he told Congress last week should be encouraging news for anyone interested in real estate: The recession that has gripped the country painfully for 18 months will "end" later this year - moving us into positive economic growth.
In the meantime, housing may be better positioned than other major industries. That's because there appears to be significant interest in the improved $8.000, nonrepayable home buyer tax credit plus a historically-favorable combination of low interest rates and rolled-back home prices.
In a new research report, the National Association of Home Builders found that affordability of houses is now at its best level in years. The association's "Housing Opportunity Index" -- which measures the percentage of homes sold in local markets around the country that are affordable to families earning area median incomes -- hit a near-record 62.4 percent in the most recent quarter for which data is available.
By contrast a year earlier, the index was at 47, meaning that less than half of households could afford to buy a median priced home. During the boom years it was even worse.
Although rising unemployment is a sobering counter-trend, the improvement in affordability may be setting the stage for a real estate rebound -- even if monthly ebbs and flows in sales look gloomy in the first quarter of the year .
Mortgage rates continue to hover in the mid-5 percent range for 30-year fixed rate loans. Fifteen year rates are at 4.7 percent.
While average prices of homes continue to decline on a national basis, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, dozens of local markets -- most of them ignored by widely-publicized surveys such as Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index -- continue to show net positive selling price performance.
According to the agency's latest quarterly survey, local markets in much of Texas registered higher prices year-to-year, along with parts of the Carolinas, the Northeast, and the Gulf states.
For example, houses selling in Austin, Texas, were up 4.4 percent over last year. In Boulder, Colorado, the average gain was 3 percent. In Houston 3.7 percent; Decatur, Alabama 6.6 percent; Kingsport-Bristol Tennessee 6.3 percent; and Syracuse, New York 3 percent.
You don't hear about these positives because these areas were lower profile during the boom, never experienced a bust, and are just not on the New York radar screens.
But they're for real, and their moderate, sensible growth patterns may be where we're headed in real estate this year.
Copyright © 2009 Realty Times. All Rights Reserved.
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