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.
California home sales are looking at a 1% increase in 2012 and the sales price may also increase 1.7%. Employment , low interest rates and an increase of affordable homes are going to fuel the sales activity and help get the recovery going. “It will take as long as five years for the state’s inventory of foreclosed properties to be absorbed” according to Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.
As we are getting into the last quarter of the year, San Francisco and the Bay Area have gone through a lot of changes. They could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. As I have mentioned on another post, what will the city be like in the next 5 years? I believe it should be at a point of recovery. We’ll see.
Although home sales have increased, the prices have decreased in 118 markets across the country. Prices have declined approx. 7.5% in March from a year ago. This is the eighth straight month of declining prices. So what’s keeping the sales going? I believe that the low interest rates and affordable prices are keeping sales alive.
San Francisco is showing signs of recovery along with San Mateo county. With gas prices continuing to rise, many buyers are moving back to big cities where they don’t have to use their car. This may be one reason why San Francisco has been experiencing a brisk recovery.
If our government continues to ignore our budget problems that we have today, we will be in the same credit classification as Greece. Once we loose our credibility, things will be more expensive. Something has to be done.
Although our budget is operating at a 60 % deficit, home sales have increased and is on track to out perform last year. This increase is fueled by homes being more affordable, historically low interest rates, and lower unemployment, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR Chief Economist. April did show signs of our economy improving but the housing industry is still fragile.
Even though we have an increase in sales, the values of the homes have dropped 3% in the first quarter of 2011, which makes this decline the largest since 2008.
With all this going on, it’s still a great time to make that investment in the “Great American Dream”.
In the coming months San Francisco will experience an increase in closed sales because the number of pending sales has increased by 8.9% which represents 2.6 months of the current supply of homes. If supplies continue to decrease and demand stays strong, maybe a seller’s market might be on the horizon.
The market will change if employment increases and interest rates stays affordable. However, if more distressed homes come on the market, we may not see a market shift for a long time or we may see a double dip in prices.
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.
Home prices dropped 4.1% annually, in 2010. Although there was an increase in prices, overall 70% of the major market prices experienced a decline and 8 had double digit declines. There were 6 markets in California that managed to have some price gain.
Unfortunately, 2011 will probably be the same, unless unemployment and distressed homes decrease. Until there are more jobs and less people loosing their homes, we will not see too many price gains.
Now that we are in the last part of the year, how is the real estate market? Well for the month of September, existing home sales were up by 10% from the month of August. However, sales are down by 19.1% compared to September 2009. This is a great opportunity for buyers to take advantage of the market. It’s no wonder that Americans still think about owning their own home. 80% of Americans believe in buying a home is a good financial decision.
Are you wondering what your home is worth these days? The California Association of REALTORS have published the results. Some areas have experienced some appreciation. My guess is that the valueshave bottomed out and are starting to go up. San Francisco and the peninsula home values seem to be doing better then a lot of other areas.
