Young Home Buyers Will Lead Housing Market Recovery, Says NAHB

Generation X—young families and adults ages 31 to 45—are likely to lead the home-buying recovery as it gets underway, according to real estate experts who spoke at an educational webinar produced by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) in partnership with Builder magazine.

These potential home buyers are most likely to think it’s a good time to get off the fence—and have strong opinions about the design features their new homes will include.

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The Housing Market: Is It Time to Rent or to Buy?

The stalled economy, expiration of homebuyer tax credits, marked-down home prices, stubbornly high unemployment and concerns about a double-dip recession all leave prospective homebuyers wondering if now is the time. Is it time for renters to convert to buyers and for existing owners to grab that dream home on the cheap? Or will housing get even cheaper?

Home prices have plunged about 30% from their mid-2006 peak on average, with some areas, like Las Vegas, seeing prices plummet in excess of 60%. At the same time, foreclosures have continued to rise in 2010 from their 2009 historic highs and have pressured prices further.

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Short Sales Not Having Intended Effect On Real Estate Market

Homeowners who are strapped with a mortgage loan that is higher than their home's value often turn to short sales to rid themselves of debt and avoid foreclosure. Although this is a popular option for both individuals and lenders to reduce their financial loss, homeowners are finding the process may pose additional obstacles.

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Surprise! Banks Help More Homeowners Than Obama

Remember how everyone complained that banks weren't doing enough to help troubled borrowers?

Well ...

Banks have realized that foreclosing on home after home after home may not be in anyone's best interest -- least of all their own. So they've ramped up the number of loan modifications they're handing out to their delinquent clients.

Banks are doing nearly twice as many modifications under their own foreclosure prevention initiatives than under the Obama administration's signature Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP.

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Plunge in Home Sales Stokes Economy Fears

U.S. home sales plummeted in July to a level not seen in more than a decade, spurring fears of renewed weakness in housing prices and the broader economy.

Sales of previously owned homes fell 27.2% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday, the lowest level since the industry group started its tally in 1999.

The expiration of a home-buyer tax credit in the spring was expected to damp buying, though less severely. Economists said the sales drop—together with a corresponding rise in the inventory of unsold homes—meant another decline in housing prices was on the horizon. House prices had stabilized last year after declining since 2006.

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Is The Real Estate Market Turning Around?

The home sales index spike from the home buyer tax credit has almost run out. If you didn't have a deal in escrow by April 30, you didn't get the credit. The time to close a deal was extended to September 30. The predictions were that we'd see a fall in July activity which is exactly what is occurring.

The reports that are currently coming in don't yet reflect July sales which will show a drop in sales. For example, the Case-Shiller report came in yesterday for May, 2010, but that report is a three-month average of prices. The report said prices were up 1.2% MoM, and 5.4% YoY. That was the peak of housing credit driven sales.

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Lower Home Prices Are Spurring Sales In Utah

About one quarter of all real estate transactions in Park City involve distressed properties.

That's not bad, said Deanna Devey of the Utah Association of Realtors. It's average for the state if not slightly better.

Foreclosure activity is definitely improving, said Park City Board of Realtors president Mark Seltenrich.

"They appear to be trending down, but remain historically high," according to the second quarter report summary from the board released July 22.

Devey said short sales account for 13 percent of all sales in Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber and Tooele counties. They are only 10 percent of sales in Summit and Wasatch counties.

"Comparatively, Summit County isn't doing too bad," she said via email.

Statistics that sound negative but are actually good news was a theme for the mid-year report from the board of Realtors.

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Home Foreclosures Still Hit Utah Metro Areas

More than 75 percent of major metropolitan areas in the U.S. are posting high foreclosure rates, according to a midyear report from foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac.

The Provo-Orem area was Utah's hardest-hit metro in the first half of 2010, with about 3,000 foreclosure-related filings by the end of June, the RealtyTrac report said. That number is an 8.37 percent improvement from the last half of 2009.

Salt Lake City was 36th on the list, with more than 8,000 properties undergoing foreclosure. That amounts to about two homes for every 48.

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Home Prices Falling Despite Low Mortgage Rates

The fine bloggers over at Calculated Risk have a good article today about the future of housing prices. In essence the article asserts that there have been declines in home values in both May and June that have yet to fully show up in many measures of home prices.

This premise is based upon data from Campbell Surveys that shows prices for short sales fell 6.3%, move-in ready foreclosures fell 6.8 percent, and non-distressed properties dropped 4.6 percent.

The decline can likely be traced to several factors. First is the collapse in demand for homes following the expiration of the first time home buyer tax credit at the end of April (the overall weakness of the economy also plays a part in the lack of demand). The next factor is the massive overhang of houses on the market and in the hands of banks and lenders. Finally, the sheer volume of foreclosed and distressed homes negatively affects the price of homes.

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Pricing Your Home To Sell In Today's Market

With no federal tax credit to entice buyers, today's home sellers have to get even more serious about making a deal.

That means pricing aggressively -- low enough to compete with foreclosures in some markets. It's a conversation that stings, said Summer Greene, a real-estate agent for a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brokerage office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"It's like telling them that their children are ugly," she said.

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New Reports Show Weakness in Housing Market

Now that the homebuyers tax credit has expired, the housing market remains weak and faces serious threats, say a pair of studies released in the last 24 hours. But demographics point to an eventual recovery and maybe even a shortage of homes down the road.

“Several factors could impede the nascent housing recovery, including serious problems in obtaining financing for the production of housing, faulty appraisal practices, and competition from short sales and foreclosed properties,” said Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Homebuilders, which released its Housing Market Index this morning. The index dropped 5 points from May levels, signifying that home builders were losing confidence in the market.

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