Foreclosures Flooding The Market And Diluting Prices

Good Morning,

   Hope you are making most of this short week (short for the lucky ones).

   The woes of the housing market surface and resurface in many different ways. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices were just released, and the numbers indicate that home prices in the Nation hit a new low in Q1 of this year. The figures showed a 4.2% drop, along with a, "new recession low" with the latest data. Additionally, home prices posted an annual decline of 5.1% when compared to Q1 of 2010. The release of these figures from Standard and Poors indicate that, "Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels."

   "There's a three-year inventory of homes in foreclosure for sale, and that's devastating home prices.", says Les Christie, in a story titled, "Foreclosures for sale: Big supply, low prices", in a story on Yahoo Real Estate/CNN Money. The story points to data from RealtyTrac, and says that more than half of homes sold in Nevada are, "in some stage of foreclosure". California and Arizona are not far behind, with foreclosures representing 45% of sales.

   Rich Sharga of RealtyTrac was quoted very accurately as saying that this, "is very bad for the economy.".

   Homes, such as REOs (bank-owned homes), are selling dramatically lower than comparable properties, at an average of 35% less, per RealtyTrac. On the high end of this data is New York State, with a 53% discount for REOs in Q1. It is also worth mentioning short sales, which average at a 9% discount.

   Sharga says that it will take 3 years to sell the nearly 2 Million distressed properties, and about 2 years to clear out the REOs, to which he says, is, "without any new foreclosures at all coming into the system."

   This goes along with the S&P/Case-Shiller figures, where Minneapolis, for example, posted a double-digit 10.0% annual decline ("the first market to be back in this territory since March 2010 when Las Vegas was down 12.0% on an annual basis."). Always eager to end on a bright note, Washington DC was the, "only city where home prices increased on both a monthly and annual basis."

   Where do you think we'll go from here in terms of home prices and inventory?

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

TAGS: #foreclosure #realestate #REO #shortsales

Update on Home Prices

Good Morning,

   Welcome back, as we're half way through the week.

   Two of the leading Home Price Indices were released yesterday; the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index and the FHFA Monthly House Price Index.

   The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index came in with, "nine markets – Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, Portland (OR), Seattle and Tampa" at their, "lowest levels since home prices peaked in 2006 and 2007". Similarly, The FHFA Monthly House Price Index, came back with a 4.3 percent drop in U.S. prices, "For the 12 months ending in November".

   These numbers show us that there is still a long way to go.

   Double-dip in Home prices? Do you agree?


Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

Troubled Cities, Creative Real Estate, FHA Tax Credit, and more

Happy Monday to Everyone,

We hope you had a great weekend, and were successful in wherever your ventures took you, whether it was looking for a home, selling a home, or just enjoying some time with your family. On a personal note, we spent the weekend with our toddler going from Chuckie Cheese to a few of those inflatable bouncy places. I've had enough pizza and gummy bears to last me a lifetime !

I came across an interesting story that I wanted to share, and it is worth taking a look at. It's titled, "10 Cities Facing a Double Whammy of Default Risks", and it lists cities which are not only in the throes of major home value declines, but also have other dominating economic issues as well. For example, the top city on the list was Las Vegas, and the article cites speculation and wild loan-types as the contributor to the decline in housing prices, construction, and jobs in the Metro area. The other cities listed are Merced (California), El Centro (California), Port St. Lucie (Florida), Fort Myers (Florida), Bend (Oregon), Ocala (Florida), Detroit (Michigan), Rockford (Illinois), and Toledo (Ohio). Although they are all different cities, some of the issues read like a script. This is an important read if you live in these metro areas, or if you are considering a move there. On the flip side, if you are an investor the specializes in rent to own or creative real estate deals, you might have a ground-floor opportunity in helping to revive these areas !

A side note - This Friday, 4/30, the Tax Credit for new home buyers (of up to $8,000) will expire. We wrote an article on this earlier, and you can read it here:
http://www.blogging.lease2buy.com/2010/04/details-on-fha-tax-credit-for-home.html

OK - back to working on our website and getting more traffic to your ads !
Have a great day, and we'll chat again on this Wednesday !

Happy Rent to Owning !