Home sales have declined in some areas and its due to high demand, low interest rates and a shortage of homes to buy. This creates a change in the market place. Not good for buyers but good for sellers.
Buyers around the bay area are going to be happy to see more homes on the market. Currently homes that are under $400,000 are experiencing a seller’s market. Most sellers are receiving multiple offers for their home. Every home that I have made offers for my clients have had more then 1 offer. One house in Hayward had 18 to 20 offers. Another house in San Bruno had 6 offers. My listing in So. San Francisco received 2 offers above the asking price, right after my open house, and 1 was all cash. My other listing in Pacifica received 8 offers, all over the asking price. It’s like that all over the Bay Area. It’s pretty discouraging for buyers today.
Maybe there is some relief coming soon. There is a shadow inventory due to be release around summer. I hope this will help the buyers that are trying to get into their home.
Here we are again. It seems like every governmental agency has it’s favorites. Remember the huge governmental bail outs, well here’s another example of government unfairness. RESPA seems to also have favorites too. Is this really going to help consumers?
In the past few weeks the real estate market showed multiple signs of a rebound of some sort. In 20 metropolitan areas prices rose 0.2% in August but were still down 3.8% year over year. This may all change soon. In September, pending sales were down 4.6%. Could this be another beginning of a triple dip? With Freddie Mac requesting for another $6 billion of your tax money and holding about 60,000 REOs from the market, which will take approx. 15 years to sell off, I don’t think our country’s rebound in a lot of areas will happen anytime soon and hope that the triple dip is not too severe.
Some help is on the way. The Federal Housing Financing Agency is trying to help change the market. They are making a few changes to the Home Affordable Refinancing Program to attract more borrowers and stimulate the mortgage industry and helping more homeowners. The National Association of REALTORS are also concerned with the state of our real estate market and has a 5 point plan that could get us out of this triple dip situation and stabilize the market. With any change, it will take a while for the changes to make a difference. Let’s hope that it won’t be too long.
There has been more then 610,000 foreclosures last month and represents a 1% increase then the previous quarter. On average it took 336 days to complete the foreclosure process nation wide. New York took 986 days to complete the process while Texas only took 86 days. Wow, Texas seems to be doing something different.
President Obama is expected to help struggling homeowners with their mortgage payments. The Wall Street Journal reports, ”The administration’s plan is expected to eliminate “appraisals and extensive underwriting requirements for most borrowers” who are up-to-date on their mortgage and want to refinance at a lower rate”. This should help those who have been keeping up with their payments and were looking for assistance in avoiding foreclosure.
While most the country is having foreclosure problems, there are areas that are still doing well. These areas are the most expensive areas in the United States. The economy today doesn’t seem to hurt these types of properties. In fact, it seems to have increased the sales activity in this price range.
The economy has driven our home values down and there is no end in site. Many areas in the nation has experienced major price reductions. Not all areas have been hit but California has 6 areas that had the largest drop in value out of the top 10 areas nationwide. The prices have decreased more then 60% from 5 years ago. This situation will not get any better anytime soon due to the 1,000,000+ foreclosures that the banks are holding this year and another 1,000.000+ foreclosures in next 2 years. It will take a few years to sell off all of the phantom inventory before any appreciation can be realized in these areas.
If you plan to purchase a home in the near future, you might want to speed up the process in order to have 3.5% of your closing cost paid by Fannie Mae. That’s right, Fannie Mae is trying to decrease their inventory of REOs. If you close on a HomePath property by June 30, 2011, you’ll be able to save 3.5% of the purchase price in closing cost. So act now!!!!
The California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) is administering $2 billion in federal funds for borrowers who are at risk of losing their homes. Borrowers who took out loans after January 1, 2009 are eligible for 4 different programs as long as the property is a primary resident, meet income requirements, and face a documented financial hardship.
The four programs are the following:
- The Unemployment Mortgage Assistance Program (UMA) which will help homeowners with their mortgage payments.
- The Mortgage Reinstatement Assistance Program (MRAP) which provides funds for homeowners who have fallen behind in their payments
- The Transition Assistance Program which provides relocation assistance
- The Principal Reduction Program (PRP) which provides funds to reduce the outstanding principal balance.
GMAC, Guild Mortgage, CalHFA, and California Dept. of Veterans Affairs are the organization that offers all 4 programs.
Lenders have foreclosed on 78,133 properties in January, which is up by 12% from the previous month but it is 11% less then a year ago. Although there has been an increase in default notices, auctions, and bank repossessions in January, it is encouraging to know that the increase is 17% less then a year ago.
5 states are responsible for more then 50% of the nation’s total foreclosure activity; California, Florida, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois. Nevada was the hardest hit state with the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. Bank repossessions increased 16% from December which is more then 5 times the national average. Even though we are seeing more foreclosures, they are less then what it was a year ago. Let’s hope that this is a good sign that we might be on the right track to recovery.
During the 4th quarter of 2010, over half of the metropolitan areas have experienced price gains from a year ago, but the rest of the areas did not. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun is encouraged by the trend and says the sales in the last quarter of 2010 has absorbed much of the inventory including distress properties. This could be a good sign that we may be recovering. With the continued improvement of the market and more jobs become available, the market will be back to normal.
Interest rates have been a big factor in sustaining the sales of homes. Last year we have seen interest rates at its all time low, but the rates have been inching up. This is a reaction to the housing recovery that we might be experiencing. We may never see rates lower then 5% in the future. In my 30 years of working in this industry, I thought I would never see interest rates lower than 6%, but it did happen. If you’re planning to finance a purchase or refinancing an existing property, you may want to do it now before the rates go sky high.
Wow!! It’s almost the end of January and boy did it fly by. Since the beginning of the year, the rates have been going up. In November of 2010, the 30 year fixed loans were at a 40 year low of 4.17% the 15 year rate was 3.57%. Now it’s at 4.8% and the 15 year rate is 4.09%. I don’t think we will ever see the November rates ever again. There will probably be less borrowing, in 2011, due to the economic conditions.
So what do you think prices of homes will do? Well, most of the country will continue to see declines or stablize in prices except for 10 cities. Unfortunately, Florida and parts of the Western parts of the US will see the largest drops in home values.
