Posts Tagged ‘Housing’Foreclosure By DesignBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Many months ago, long before bureaucrats dreamed up their massive, ill-conceived loan-modification programs, the free market found a solution to the mortgage mess. Specialists in handling distressed debt amassed tens of billions of dollars to buy up bad loans at steep discounts. The offending institutions who [...] House of the Week Results: Paradise Found – Ocean BeachOcean Beach, or OB, is located just north of the Point Loma Naval Base in San Diego. OB is about as far from Laguna Beach as a Southern California beach town could be. It’s grungy, dirty — it’s awesome. Apart from the main beach, where crowded, competitive SoCal surf is personified both off the pier [...] Housing Perspective: January Pending Home SalesBreaking a trend of rising Pending Home Sales, the index of signed purchase contracts fell in January, down 7.7% from December, according to the National Association of Realtors (or NAR). The drop was more than twice as bad as economists’ expectations — and by “expectations” we mean wild stabs in the dark. Pending Home Sales, [...] Housing Perspective: January Existing Home SalesBy AUSTIN NELSON Nationwide home values continue to decline into the New Year. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released existing home sales data today for January, indicating an overall 3.1% decline in the median sales price of US homes from the previous month. This drop follows the same national trend we have been seeing [...] Housing Perspective: December Case-Shiller Home Price IndexBy ANDREW JEFFERY The broken record rambles on: Home prices keep falling. The latest reading from the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index showed another record decline, as prices tumbled 18.5% from a year ago. And again, the worst performing metro regions were out west, with Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco leading the way to [...] Housing Perspective: Home Prices Fall … AgainBy RYAN TAYLOR The National Association of Realtors announced yesterday that the median home price in the US fell by 12% from a year earlier. Not surprisingly, the fall in prices was driven by the ever increasing number of foreclosure sales which accounted for 45 percent of all transactions. The pressure on prices is only [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: How Good is Zillow?By ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Americans finally get it: Home prices are falling. This may seem like a preposterous statement, what with the entire global financial system in disarray after the collapse of the US housing market, but we Americans are stubbornly optimistic people, content to ignore calamity as long as we [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Capitulation Now!This post first appeared on Minyanville. Finally, housing is starting to act like a market searching for a bottom. Well, sort of. In former boom states like California, Arizona and Florida, distressed sales are driving the local real-estate markets. After a near-complete evaporation of buying activity last year, buyers have been brought off the sidelines [...] Housing Perspective: December Pending Home SalesBy AUSTIN NELSON Data released by the NAR yesterday show that pending home sales increased at the national level by over 6% in December 2008. Analysts had been expecting the reading to be unchanged from the previous month. This index theoretically predicts home sale trends for the following month by looking at the number of [...] Housing Perspective: December New Home SalesBy RYAN TAYLOR The Commerce Department reported a 14.7% drop in the seasonally adjusted rate of new home sales in December. Builders unloaded just 482,000 homes, the lowest number since 1982, while the median price slipped 9.3% from December 2007 to $206,500. Tough to find a silver lining in this release, the numbers pretty much [...] Housing Perspective: November Case-Shiller Home Price IndexBy ANDREW JEFFERY In contrast to the silver lining of higher-than-expected home sales tallied in yesterday’s release of Existing Home Sales, this morning’s Case-Shiller November Home Price Index registered the worst year-over-year performance on record. Property values in November 2008 tumbled 18.2% from the prior year and 2.2% from the previous month. As measured by [...] Housing Perspective: December Existing Home SalesBy AUSTIN NELSON The National Association of Realtors released figures on existing home sales for December, showing an “unexpected” rise in sales volume for the month. Across the US, data showed a 6.5% increase in volume month over month. The surprise increase was bittersweet however, as median home price declined almost 3% month over month [...] Housing Perspective: January Home Builder SentimentBy RYAN TAYLOR Just when you thought the market for new homes couldn’t get any worse, it did. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo January builder sentiment index dropped to 8 from 9. While the homebuilders were setting records for new home sales in 2005 and 2006, they’re now setting records for the [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: A Tale of Two MarketsBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Increasingly, US real estate is becoming a tale of 2 markets. In low-income neighborhoods, overbuilt suburbs, and other areas besieged by foreclosures, home sales are through the roof. Data released this week by MDA Dataquick, a real estate information service, show December 2008 sales in Southern California’s [...] Falling Rents Signal DeflationBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. In recent months, headlines have been popping up noting that rents – finally – are beginning to follow home prices into the abyss. Since the housing market began to crumble, would-be homeowners were forced to become renters, keeping demand for rental units relatively strong even as home prices [...] The Value of an REO, Part 2By RYAN TAYLOR In this two part series, Cirios’ Valuation Guru Ryan Taylor offers an insider’s look into the nuances of investing in foreclosed homes. Please click here for Part 1. As potential buyers embark on their search for a new home or a prospective investment, they are very likely to see at least one [...] The Value of an REOBy RYAN TAYLOR In this two part series, Cirios’ Valuation Guru Ryan Taylor offers an insider’s look into the nuances of investing in foreclosed homes. Please click here for Part 2. From Beverly Hills to Detroit, the term REO is quickly becoming part of our country’s vocabulary. REO, or Real Estate Owned, refers to a [...] Straight Up Statistics: Deconstructing the AverageBy AUSTIN NELSON In today’s fast paced, data-driven world, it’s easy to get lost in the morass of statistics flashing across our TVs and computer screens at a sometimes maddening pace. Government officials, bankers, retailers and snake oil salesmen alike throw out statistical arguments at the drop of a hat, telling you why their pitch [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Buyers’ Market? BewareBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Is it a buyer’s market? Ask most real-estate professionals the above question, and the response will almost certainly be an emphatic “Yes!” After all, they quickly explain, inventory levels are at all-time highs, sellers are desperate to get out from under their rapidly depreciating homes, and [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Rich Get Stuck in Subprime SlimeBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. From expansive estates in the Hamptons to mansions on the Malibu cliffs, the rich are watching their vast real-estate wealth evaporate before their eyes. Perhaps no market epitomizes the ultimate surrender of high-end real estate than the island of Manhattan, where housing prices had held relatively stable [...] Housing Perspective: November Pending Home SalesBy ANDREW JEFFERY It should come as no surprise that with headlines screaming financial Armageddon and the stock market making new lows seemingly every day, last November wasn’t exactly a great month for the housing market. This morning, the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, released its Pending Home Sales Index, which measures signed contracts [...] Straight Up Statistics: The Magic of Seasonal AdjustmentsBy AUSTIN NELSON Have you ever wondered what the heck it means when you read that economic data is “seasonally adjusted?” How can non-seasonally adjusted data show one trend while seasonally adjusted data shows something completely different? Which dataset is the most reliable? The in-depth answer to these questions requires a PhD in statistical analysis. [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: The Other Side of the Rock-Bottom MortgageBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. It’s wishful thinking that artificially low interest rates alone are enough to rehabilitate the housing market. The mortgage industry has undergone a swift and ruthless downsizing over the past 18 months. While a necessary part of the corrective process, the market is ill-equipped to handle the onslaught of [...] Housing Perspective: November Housing StartsBy AUSTIN NELSON Housing starts in the U.S. fell to their lowest levels since the government started keeping statistics on the subject in 1959. The drop is staggering — almost 20% since October — and is another stark indication of the current state of the U.S. housing industry, not to mention the economy as whole. [...] |