Mon 30 Apr 2007
From Prudential Fox & Roach (no link):
Unseasonably Cold Weather Leads to Dip in Southern New Jersey Real Estate Market
According to The Prudential Fox & Roach, REALTORS® HomExpert Pending Home Sales Index©, the number of sales under contract was down in March due to winter storms and cold weather
April 30, 2007 – DEVON, PA – Pending home sales in March fell due to continued unseasonable weather throughout the five-county Southern New Jersey region. With several winter storms and a colder than average month, the HomExpert Pending Home Sales Index©, declined 13.2 percent from 99.9 in February to 86.7 in March, according to Prudential Fox & Roach, REALTORS®.
“Unseasonably frigid weather throughout the country and particularly in this region kept the pace slower than what is traditionally expected, “said Steve Storti, senior vice president of marketing for Prudential Fox & Roach. “As we enter the spring and the busiest time of year for buying and selling, we will look for the market to pick up.”
The following is the March 2007 HomExpert Pending Home Sales Index for the five-county southern New Jersey region:
Burlington
March Index 81.0
February Index 88.7
Percent Change -7.5Camden
March Index 86.2
February Index 103.1
Percent Change -16.2Gloucester
March Index 83.5
February Index 102.7
Percent Change -15.4Mercer
March Index 92.6
February Index 107.5
Percent Change -15.6Salem
March Index 97.5
February Index 111.8
Percent Change -10.1
From MarketWatch:
Home-builder Centex swings to quarterly loss
Home-builder Centex Corp. after Monday’s closing bell said it swung to a quarterly loss and booked impairment charges on a slower housing market.
The Dallas-based company said it posted a loss from continuing operations in the fourth quarter of $22.3 million, or 18 cents a share. A year ago, earnings from continuing operations were $369 million, or $2.86 a share.
Centex said its quarterly results included land impairment charges of $202 million, or $1.01 a share.
Home closings fell 14% during the quarter to 10,582 units, Centex said.
From CNN/Money:
Bullish real estate economist to step down
The economist who prodded investors into the U.S. housing boom and has been skewered by bloggers during the bust is leaving a top real estate trade association, the group said Monday.
David Lereah, the author of “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?” will leave the the National Association of Realtors by the middle of next month after serving as the head economist for seven years, a spokesman said.
Lereah was the Realtors’ analyst through the five-year run-up in home values that ended in 2005, and he has continued to deliver the group’s outlook through the current downturn.
After leaving NAR, Lereah will become a senior executive at Move Inc., an online real estate service, said Lucien Salvant of the real estate trade group.
…
One blog, David Lereah Watch, cites passages from Lereah’s books and his encouraging words about the housing market and asks him to “admit he cheerleaded this destructive housing bubble.”
In October, Lereah said that he expected “sales activity to pick up early next year.” In recent months, Lereah has pushed his expectations for recovery deeper into 2007 and has trimmed his forecast for home sales for the year.
Salvant said Lereah was traveling Monday and could not be reached but noted that the economist “works for the Realtors’ association and people should not be surprised that he would take a Realtors’ point of view.”
(emphasis added)
Centex 4Q Profit Falls 49 Percent
Monday April 30, 4:29 pm ET
Centex 4Q Profit Drops on Sluggish Home Closings in Soft Housing Market
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070430/earns_centex.html?.v=1
DALLAS (AP) — Homebuilder Centex Corp. said Monday its fiscal fourth-quarter profit fell 49 percent due to a drop in home closings, in what the company called one of the most difficult housing markets in 25 years.
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For the quarter ended March 31, net income fell to $198.9 million, or $1.60 per share, from $391.8 million, or $3.04 per share, in the prior-year quarter.
The company reported a loss from continuing operations of $22.3 million, or 18 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a loss of 3 cents per share.
Revenue dropped 11 percent to $3.67 billion from $4.13 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006. Analysts expected revenue of $3.34 billion.
Revenue from homebuilding fell 12 percent to $3.52 billion. The company said the revenue drop was a result of a 14 percent year-over-year decline in home closings.
For the year, profit fell 79 percent to $268.4 million, or $2.16 per share, from $1.29 billion, or $9.71 per share, in 2006. Revenue dipped 7 percent to $12.01 billion from $12.85 billion.
Centex shares dipped $1.25, or 2.7 percent, to close at $44.77 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Hi
A lurker for a few months. Moved to Chicago. I have 3 months left on my lease. Is there any way to get out of the lease.
Earlier, I could get out of the rental lease, when I lost my job due to cuts.
Bob, chicagofinance, clotpoll, any ideas.
Thanks
Lurker01
” will leave the the National Association of Realtors by the middle of next month”
Middle of next month is rather quick. What’s happening?
Technical evidence emerges that rally getting old
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/technical-evidence-emerges-rally-may/story.aspx?guid=%7B2C4B6F0C%2D83AF%2D4C01%2D9EF0%2DAB74B88A80BF%7D
Evidence is mounting that stocks are being sold by more sophisticated investors and acquired by less sophisticated ones
Yeah, it was the weather, that’s it. The weather.
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/04/us-office-vacancy-rates-rise.html
U.S. Office Vacancy Rates Rise
>>
CR on why commercial RE investments may see a decline.
http://news.move.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=192403&p=irol-newsArticle_print&ID=992808&highlight=
“…a new business entity which will launch in the third quarter of 2007 and which is expected to be transformational for both consumers and real estate professionals.”
Is NAR planning to open direct sales channel to consumers through realtor.com? Skip agents, flat fee, less overhead and finally more profit.
we are trying to lure the former fed chair to work for our national association.
Buy now before you miss the bottom!
Just want to clarify on behalf of the NAR that all the negative news on housing is due to bad weather.
Soon as the weather clears, the party will start again…. in about 3 to 5 years.
“Unseasonably Cold Weather”
It wasn’t that cold. No more excuses. This lamb market may be finally turning to the bears.
SAS
From Bloomberg:
Bond Demand Put Risky Subprime Borrowers Into Homes
Demand for bonds, and investors’ complacency toward risk, can be blamed for the record early delinquencies and defaults on subprime home loans, speakers at an industry conference in Miami said.
The poor performance of subprime home loans made last year stems from an average drop of at least 0.50 percentage point in the yield premiums for credit risk on all types of fixed-income assets since 2000, Mortgage Bankers Association Chief Economist Doug Duncan said, citing research by other economists.
“That allowed another cohort of borrowers to get into homes that wouldn’t have if credit spreads were wider,” Duncan said yesterday, citing cheaper loans and looser underwriting.
Investors, seeing “clear signs” that subprime home loans had gotten too risky, didn’t pull back from the securities because of the “increased global liquidity and increased quest for yield,” according to Stefaan DeDoncker, head of asset- and mortgaged-backed securities in the structured credit group of Fortis Bank SA in Brussels.
“Deals would get oversubscribed from the moment they were announced, even before you could get a look at the collateral characteristics,” said DeDoncker. Fortis’s 35 billion euro investment portfolio is about 60 percent in U.S. assets.
(Emphasis added)
Sounds alot like the dot com IPO market..
jb
I wonder what kind of excuses we are going to hear about April sales, dog ate them?
It’s only Monday and real-estate agents are working overtime adding 500+ listings in one day. That’s called hard work.
The dog ate the “open house” sign.
lurky (4)-
Just walk on it. I’m not an expert on Illinois RE, but most states require that landlords first attempt to mitigate their losses due to broken leases before going after the offending tenant for compensation or damages.
With just three months left on your lease, I doubt any landlord would bother coming at you for anything more.
Good luck to you…sorry to hear about your bad news.
Buyers decided not to attend open houses in March because weather was too good.
Rregarding #4 (canceling lease):
It really depends on the landlord. Where I live, I can break a lease, but then I have to pay a fee ($100) and would probably lose most or all of my security deposit. Basically, the landload would make me pay for whatever time the apartment is empty (while they are prepping it for the next tenant). But they would not have a problem finding a new tenant.
But I know someone who would up paying more. Since the lease was broken, the landlord claimed they could raise the rent $200 per month, which was like a 20% market-based increase (this was in NYC in the early 90s). But no one was willing to pay that much, so the apartment remained vacant, and my friend got charged the original rent until the lease ran out.