National Homes Sales statistics

REALTOR® Magazine-Daily News-Existing-Home Sales Hit 5-Month High

Existing-home sales rose in July to the highest level in five months, although they continue to be well below the numbers from last year at this time, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – increased 3.1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5 million units from a downwardly revised level of 4.85 million in June. Sales were 13.2 percent lower than the 5.76 million-unit pace in July 2007.

NAR President Richard F. Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif., said the up-and-down pattern may break soon.

“We hope the new tools in the hands of home buyers from the recently enacted housing stimulus package will spark a sustained sales uptrend in the months ahead,” he said. “Buyers who’ve been on the sidelines should take a closer look at what’s available to them now in terms of financing and incentives. Given some of the inventory on the market, we also strongly encourage buyers to get a professional home inspection.”

Median Price Down 7.1% from Year Ago

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $212,400 in July, down 7.1 percent from a year ago when the median was $228,600.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said home prices in some regions could soon increase.

“Sales have picked up significantly in several Florida and California markets. Home prices generally follow sales trends after a few months of lag time,” he said. “Still, inventory remains high in many parts of the country and will require time to fully absorb. We expect more balanced conditions in 2009 and will eventually return to normal long-term appreciation patterns.”

Analysis of NAR price data since 1968 shows home prices normally rise 1 to 2 percentage points above the overall rate of inflation, building wealth over the typical period of homeownership.

Foreclosures in Riverside and Southern California

Foreclosures push Inland home sales up, median prices down | Business | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

Inland home sales continued to rise amid falling prices in July as bargain hunters locally and throughout Southern California bought up foreclosure properties in affordable neighborhoods, research firm DataQuick Information Systems reported Monday.

While the number of resale homes sold rose almost 50 percent in Riverside County and 25 percent in San Bernardino County, median prices in both counties dropped 35 percent from a year ago. Slightly more than 4,100 homes were sold in Riverside County at a median price of $260,000, and a little more than 2,500 properties were sold in San Bernardino County, where the median price was $230,000.

Southern California as a whole saw unit sales rise 13.8 percent while prices dropped 31 percent.

"What we're looking at is a fire sale of properties in newer affordable neighborhoods that were bought or refinanced near the price peak with lousy mortgages," said DataQuick President John Walsh.

"What we're still not seeing is this level of distress spreading to more expensive or established neighborhoods," he added.

While foreclosure sales accounted for 43.6 percent of all of July's Southland sales, DataQuick analyst John Karevoll said they were an even more dominant factor in the Inland region. They accounted for 64.2 percent of sales in Riverside County and 58 percent in San Bernardino County, and that trend could continue for several months.

California Real Estate is very hard to appraise in this down market

I note the same problems in San Diego. You must be ready with your other workout options

Real estate chaos hits appraisal industry

Instability in the region's housing market is making it difficult to determine values, according to mortgage brokers and real estate appraisers. "It's miserable," said Karen Mann, who runs a small East Bay appraisal firm called Mann & Associates. "I've been in the business 28 years, and this is the worst downturn I've seen."

While Mann's Discovery Bay office is in one of the hardest-hit parts of the Bay Area, appraisers in San Francisco and other places where the market has fared better echoed many of her concerns. "They are shooting down the value of appraisals like I've never seen before," said Rick Gordillo, whose practice specializes in residential real estate. "It's almost as if they don't want the business. They are turning away loans even when the values are there."

Even seemingly low appraisals are being questioned by lenders, who have been burned by the mortgage crisis and are now scrutinizing loan applications with much more care, said Ed Craine, vice president of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers.

Short Sales are not easy - make sure your are aware of all your options

REALTOR® Magazine: News: Short Sales: Coming Up Short

You Told Us



• 54% Involved in a short sale in the last 12 months



• 87% Faced impediments by lenders or loan servicers



• 94% Cited lack of response by lender or servicer as a chief impediment



Source: NAR Research, online survey of 3,530 practitioners

Homes prices in san diego effected by lax lending standards not necesarily sub prime loans

This confirms what we in southern california have known for a while. It was the lax lending standards that was a major contribution to the rise in prices and the the tightening of lender standards that is causing the fall.

Many people could not afford the homes they were buying in San Diego but they were willing to buy them as long as they were going up. Lenders were stupid enough to give money to unqualified people. This caused excess demand and that demand drove up prices.

Now the lenders have taken the punch bowl away. When prices get to a level that people can afford the inventory will clear.

Right now the under 400,000 dollar market is hot. Why? because people can qualify for the homes.

When that FHA program goes away in three months -- it could be different.

A pretty high percentage of our short sale in San Diego are getting offers from people with FHA programs.







University of California, Irvine | The Paul Merage School of Business

Subprime lending not main trigger of real estate bubble

UCI-led study points to 2003 credit market shift as key reason for runup in home prices

Irvine, Calif., July 30, 2008

Critics often point to subprime mortgage lending – the funding of home loans to borrowers with less-than-perfect credit – as the culprit in the unsustainable boom in U.S. home prices that eventually derailed the real estate and mortgage markets.

But new research led by UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business Center for Real Estate suggests subprime loan products themselves may not be the primary cause of U.S. home prices’ rise and fall.

Instead, the considerable 2003 pullback of government-sponsored financial service corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the credit market and their replacement by aggressive, private mortgage securities issuers in late 2003 had a significant impact on home prices and was more responsible than subprime lending for the drastic price runup that peaked in early 2006.

“We were quite surprised to find the intensity of subprime lending was insignificant after controlling for all the other factors influencing the market, but we were really blown away when Fannie’s and Freddie’s continuing presence in the market was shown to be so important,” said Kerry Vandell, UCI finance professor and Center for Real Estate director.

Vandell along with Major Coleman IV, finance doctoral student, and Michael LaCour-Little, Cal State Fullerton finance professor, used 1998-2006 housing and mortgage data from a variety of sources – including First American LoanPerformance, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and the Federal Housing Finance Board – to analyze 20 U.S. metropolitan areas.

The researchers found that rising home prices up to 2003 could be explained by economic fundamentals, such as low unemployment rates, expanding household incomes and population growth. These factors fueled housing demand and, in turn, increased U.S. home prices. During this time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actively issued and purchased conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities.

But in 2003, political, regulatory and economic factors – including accounting irregularities that led to their senior officers’ resignations and the capping of their retained loan portfolios – forced the two entities to significantly slow their lending volume. Private funding in the form of asset-backed securities and residential mortgage-backed securities replaced conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities as the prevalent source of mortgage capital.

The new credit environment allowed looser underwriting standards and increased tolerance for riskier, high-yield loan products. Such products included adjustable-rate mortgages with low initial “teaser” rates, Alt-A loans that did not require income verification and nonowner-occupied investor products. This borrowing climate provided previously marginal borrowers with additional access to credit. The credit market shift led to a record increase in total mortgage volume and pushed up home prices with momentum characteristic of

New housing bill - will it help San Diego homeowners get loan modifications

many homeowners in san diego have junior liens. Are the seconds going to just walk away. I am not so sure this is going to make a big difference for all but a few homeowners


Bush signs housing bill to provide mortgage relief - Yahoo! News

he bill takes several approaches to curing the ailing housing market.

It aims to spare an estimated 400,000 debt-strapped homeowners, many of whom owe more their houses are worth, from foreclosure by allowing them to get more affordable mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

The FHA could insure $300 billion in such mortgages, which would be available to homeowners who showed they could afford a new loan. Banks would first have to agree to take a large loss on the existing loans in exchange for avoiding an often-costly foreclosure.

The plan also is designed to relieve a broader credit crunch that has taken hold because of rising defaults and falling home values. To free up safer and more affordable mortgage credit, the bill permanently would increase to $625,000 the size of home loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy and the FHA can insure. They also could buy and back mortgages 15 percent higher than the median home price in certain areas.

It goes far beyond addressing the current crisis, however.

Walk Away, loan modification, new mortgage forgiveness law

I thought some people will appreciate the early speculation on the subject of the new housing bill.

Warning: eventually most threads on this link devolve into a flame war... For now I thought the first few posts were excellent:

1. what about the neighbors real estate price
2. will this cause home prices to fall
3. we more people go into default to gain benefit from the bill
4. why will the lenders go for this
5. which homeowners will take advantage of the relief

I wonder how this will effect the 700 to million dollar home market in San Diego.

Forums - WOW!!! The biggest news in housing market and nobody on ET notices...

07-27-08 06:28 PM

Quote from Bowgett:

Did you read details of this bill?

PS Bill only goes into effect on Oct 1st so we are not going to see its full effect until some time in Q1 of 2009.



Looking on the congress website I found this:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR03221:

But do you have a straightforward (unedited) version of what passed Sat? Please post it here.

Found this as well.

http://dpc.senate.gov/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=lb-110-2-123

Its not exactly clear to me how the program will work though. From the looks of it, they will facilitate the forgiveness of any underwater amount, and then let the borrower split half the profits on any appreciation from the new refinanced price.

Example:

a. Buy subprime house in bubble for $300k 100% financed.

b. Now subprime house is worth $150k at market. This program forgives the $150k differences and makes a new loan for $150k.

c. If the property appreciates above $150k, lets say back to $300k, the subprime owner splits half of the profit with the govt. (pockets $75k, instead of 'breaking even' in a previous scenario).

Here's the supporting text I found from the above:

HOPE for Homeowners Act of 2008
- The new loan be a 30 year, fixed-rate mortgage for an amount the family can repay or 90 percent of the current value of the home, whichever is less;
- (2) All subordinate liens be extinguished through negotiation with the first lien holder, and all holders receive a portion of any future appreciation of the property;
- (3) The borrower share the newly-created equity and future appreciation equally with FHA until such time as the borrower sells the home or refinances the FHA-insured mortgage, and the borrower's access to the newly-created equity be phased-in over five years.

Whats not clear to me is how the lenders get paid to let the property owner refinance. Seems convoluted. Point #2 seems to contradict point #3. How can lien holders (ie home equity line or second mortgage) 'receive a portion of any future appreciation of the property' when #3 says 'future property appreciation' is split between the 'borrower' and 'FHA' evenly?

I'll admit I'm confused. Found this too on: http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4324

'No investor or lender bailout. Investors and/or lenders will have to take significant losses in order to benefit from the proceeds of the loans refinanced with government insurance. However, these losses would be less than the losses associated with foreclosure.'

Maybe I got all excited over nothing... It is up to lenders to choose between partial cashflow + loss vs. outright loss and no liability. This of course means no asset write-ups or stabilization if lenders don't partake.

Please post the actual final text (without revisions/edits) if you can find it.. It seems difficult to find this.