Mortgage rates are up since July 27th? I saw that Jumbo loans went up, but those are for big houses. I think regular loans hit a two month low before last weeks turmoil...don't know about right now
with the subprime and alt-a market pretty much drying up and rates going way up and a lot more due dilegence being done.....there is tremedous damage being done on the demand side and it should be interesting just how supply will react.
Home Sales Fall Nearly 11 Percent in 2Q Wednesday August 15, 10:18 am ET Existing Home Sales Fall by Nearly 11 Percent in Second Quarter, Home Prices Drop WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. existing home sales fell nearly 11 percent in the second quarter from last year's levels as the residential real estate market's slump continued, an industry group said Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The National Association of Realtors said existing homes sold at a annual rate of 5.91 million homes in the second quarter, down from a pace of 6.63 million in the quarter a year ago. Nationwide median home prices dropped 1.5 percent to $223,800 from $227,100 in the same quarter last year. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less. However, the real estate agents' trade group saw encouraging price trends in many metropolitan areas. In more than 60 percent of 149 metro areas around the country, median prices increased from last year's levels. The Salt Lake City and Binghamton, N.Y. areas actually had price gains of nearly 20 percent for single-family homes, while the Elmira, N.Y. and Melbourne, FL areas had price declines of 15 percent or more. The report comes comes as delinquencies among borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit have risen dramatically over the past year, and other loans are showing weakness as well. Lenders have dramatically tightened their borrowing standards amid fears that delinquencies will rise further. "Although home prices are relatively flat, more metro areas are showing price gains with general improvement since bottoming-out in the fourth quarter of 2006," Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said in a statement. "Recent mortgage disruptions will hold back sales temporarily, but the fundamental momentum clearly suggests stabilizing price trends in many local markets." The San Francisco Bay Area was the most expensive region of the country, with median prices of $865,000 for San Jose and $846,000 for San Francisco. Last week, the Realtors trade group lowered its monthly sales forecast, predicting that home sales will hit a five-year low this year. The revised forecast calls for existing home sales of 6.04 million in 2007, down 6.8 percent from last year. This year's sales would be the lowest since 2002, when sales hit 5.63 million.
What housing issue? http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1230248820070814?pageNumber=1 By Tom Brown CAPE CORAL, Florida (Reuters) - Phone books that were delivered but never opened rot away next to empty driveways and overgrown lawns, telltale signs that once-booming southwest Florida is now the center of the U.S. housing storm. Until two years ago, middle-class retirees vied with property speculators for houses and apartments in Cape Coral, a town near Fort Myers on Florida's sun-drenched Gulf Coast. Now almost every other house on some of its streets has a for-sale sign outside. With a bloated inventory of unsold homes and a growing number of homeowners forced by mortgage delinquencies to sell -- thanks to the subprime crisis and ensuing credit crunch -- southwest Florida's once warm clime for property has turned stone-cold. Linda Setterlund, 61, owns a pristine three-bedroom, two-bath, Cape Coral house that has been on the market for about a year. At a reduced asking price of $183,900, she said the house had been priced to match what she and her husband owed on it, after moving in three years ago with a 30-year fixed mortgage. Setterlund said she and her husband had decided to leave the area to join family in Tennessee, but their decision was also prompted by growing real estate taxes and skyrocketing homeowner insurance rates after an active 2005 hurricane season. "They're saying that we're heading for a recession but I think we're past that," said Setterlund, referring to the housing glut and its effect across much of south Florida. "I think we're headed more into a depression.".............
Florida and CA have NOTHING on NV. I am here in the Reno/Tahoe area. Nevada already has 3 times the foreclosure rate as the rest of the country and it is just beginning. The massive build up in Vegas and Reno in the last few years was incredible. The number of homes in Reno in my estimation has tripled in the last 5-7 years. This town has tripled in size from my observation in the number of new homes and subdivisions and shopping centers. In 2000 my neighbors were trying to sell their home for over a year and a half. Then things went CRAZY around the country and here. Homes began being built all over the place. You could have bought a brand new 3/2 nice home in a nice brand new neighborhood subdivision for $149,000-169,000 in 2000. That same home has gone up over 100%. The casino industry is a major employer and they do not pay sheet. $8 an hour jobs. But lenders gave money to people who couldn't pay and people went out and bought that same home for $300K+. Prices shot up and fancy homes were going up left and right for $400K-600K but the JOBS aren't here enmass and didn't follow. The casino's are still paying $8 BUCKS AN HOUR and high paying jobs haven't been created. Buyers have evaporated and it is next to impossible to sell a home in Reno right now. Prices are way out of wack with what people can afford in this town. I think this real estate correction has just begun to unwind as far as NV.
Hey Dude, Nice to see a neighbor! We live down near Auburn, CA. Have a cabin in Tahoe, and relatives in Yerington, so just thought I'd say hello. Sounds like a fair synopsis you have there, pretty much the same here. I sold a rental we had in June of 2001 at what I thought was the peak, then 9/11 happened and mass infusion of cash to stupid people and well, here we are! Like you, I think we're just starting the descent around here...
Hey how's it going where do you sail? i checked your profile. I sail on SF Bay through SO Beach yacht club. Nice location as we are just a stones throw from AT&T park and I can sit on our deck and look at the ball park drinking a Samuel Adams and then stroll over after a day of sailing SF Bay and catch some NL ball. LOVE IT!
Prolly ought to move to chit-chat. I'm also sailing outta SF, Sausalito to be exact. I have a slip over in Monterey, but I am also between boats (looking though) so I joined MSA to get access. Nice folks, and I love the location. PM me if you wanna set something up.
***more detail in this article. NAR puts their spin on it and notes that more areas showed price gains over the past year when compared to the last quarter. Hmmmm....*** Existing Home Sales Fall in 41 States Wednesday August 15, 10:49 am ET By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer Existing Home Sales Fall in 41 States While Home Prices Are Down in a Third of Cities Surveyed WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of existing homes fell in 41 states during the April-June quarter while home prices were down in one-third of the metropolitan areas surveyed, a real estate trade group reported Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The new figures from the National Association of Realtors underscored the severity of the current housing slump, the worst downturn in 16 years. However, Realtors officials said they saw some glimmers of hope in the data. They noted that existing home prices were up in 97 of the 149 metropolitan areas surveyed compared with the sales prices of a year ago. That represented price gains for 65 percent of the areas surveyed, an improvement from the first quarter of this year when only about 55 percent of the metropolitan areas reported price gains from the same period a year ago. In the fourth quarter of last year, less than half of the metropolitan areas reported price gains. "Although home prices are relatively flat, more metro areas are showing price gains with general improvement since bottoming-out in the fourth quarter of 2006," said Lawrence Yun, senior economist for the Realtors. The states suffering the biggest drop in sales in the second quarter, compared to the same period a year ago, were Florida, down 41.3 percent, and Nevada, down 37.5 percent. Other states with big declines were Arizona, down 23.4 percent; Tennessee, down 21.5 percent; Maryland, down 21.1 percent, and California, down 19.8 percent. Bucking the downward trend, six states actually showed sales increases during the second quarter while one state had unchanged sales and there was incomplete data for two states, the Realtors reported. Wyoming had the biggest sales increase, a rise of 10.8 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to the second quarter of 2006. Sales were up 4.1 percent in Iowa from a year ago while sales in North Dakota rose by 2.9 percent, the third strongest gain. Nationwide, sales of existing homes totaled 5.91 million units at an annual rate in the second quarter, down 10.8 percent from the sales pace of the second quarter of 2006. The national median sales price in the second quarter was $223,800, down 1.5 percent from a median price in the spring of 2006. "Recent mortgage disruptions will hold back sales temporarily, but the fundamental momentum clearly suggests stabilizing price trends in many local markets," Yun said. National Assocation of Realtors: http://www.realtor.org