JP Morgan: Bottom only 5% away

Posted on August 15, 2011 by grim

From HousingWire:

Home prices still poised to drop 5% by early 2012, say JPMorgan analysts

JPMorgan Chase stuck to their outlook Friday, forecasting home prices in the U.S. could plunge another 4% to 5%, before reaching a bottom in early 2012.

Analysts at the bank originally lowered their prediction on future home prices in June. If prices continue to fall at this rate, they will be down 37% from their peak when they finally reach a bottom.

JPMorgan Chase analysts said a drop in distressed home sales activity buoyed prices a bit in the past few months, with the CoreLogic home price index rising for the third straight month in June, edging up 0.7%. Tighter underwriting standards across the board remain a challenge, with many borrowers unable to qualify for loans.

“Without a fundamental improvement in the demand-supply imbalance, both seasonality and distressed sales may turn against us in the coming winter and push home prices lower,” Chase analysts said.
…
Even though more consumers are turning to rental properties, JPMorgan said rising rental prices could eventually push potential homeowners off the fence, encouraging them to buy properties.

Posted in Employment, Housing Bubble, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 85 Comments

What? Fraud here? Can’t be!

Posted on August 13, 2011 by grim

From the NY Daily News:

Mortgage fraud hits New York City hard as economy tanks and home scams rise

With the U.S. housing market down, mortgage fraud is up – and New York is near the top of the heap when it comes to getting fleeced, a new FBI report said.

Mortgage fraud schemes were on the rise in 2010, the last year for which data is available, as a sputtering economy, high unemployment, increasing delinquencies and foreclosures and limited credit availability created a breeding ground for scammers to take advantage of harried homeowners and the system, according to the bureau’s Mortgage Fraud Report.

“The current and continuing depressed housing market will likely remain an attractive environment for mortgage fraud perpetrators, who will continue to seek new methods to circumvent loopholes and gaps in the mortgage lending market,” said the report, which was released yesterday.

“Mortgage fraud enables perpetrators to earn high profits through illicit activity that poses a relative low risk for discovery,” the report said.

The number of pending investigations for mortgage fraud was 3,129 in 2010, a 12% increase from 2009 – and a 90% spike from 2008.

Although total dollar losses attributed to mortgage fraud is unknown, the FBI said 71%, or 2,222 of all pending cases last year, involved dollar losses totaling more than $1 million.

New York and New Jersey were among the top 10 states with the most fraud cases, and New York City was third in pending FBI investigations last year with 185, behind Las Vegas (292) and Los Angeles (195).

Posted in National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 89 Comments

Can investors fix the housing market?

Posted on August 12, 2011 by grim

From the Atlantic:

Dear Treasury, Investors Can Fix the Housing Market

Dear Treasury Secretary Geithner,

First, kudos on your decision to stay on for the rest of your boss’s term. I know Goldman is aching to get you on board, but you’ll have plenty of time to make money when you’re in your 50s. Now that you’ve committed to another year, let’s talk for a minute about one of the most important problems you face: how to fix the housing market.

I’m glad to see that the Treasury has recognized two key facts about the housing market. For starters, the economic recovery won’t take off until housing has hit bottom and begun to rebound. And as far as what Washington has done to try to fix the market up to now, none of it’s working.

What Isn’t Helping

Let’s learn from those lessons, shall we?

Lesson #1: Be Aggressive — Little Carrots Don’t Work
Lesson #2: Stop Trying to Prevent Foreclosures — Mortgage Modifications Aren’t Working
Lesson #3: Ignore Consumers — They Can’t Fix This Problem
Lesson #4: Stop Pretending You Control Fannie and Freddie — You Don’t
…
Help the Private Market to Work

Idea #1: No Taxes on Rental Income for Five Years
Idea #2: Allow Crazy Flexibility with Rental Property Improvement Tax Deduction
Idea #3: Exempt These Investors from Real Estate Taxes through 2015

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 146 Comments

A look at Q2 home prices

Posted on August 11, 2011 by grim

From the Record:

Home prices flat in North Jersey, National Association of Realtors says

North Jersey home prices were flat in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. But a number of local real estate agents say they believe prices are declining.

According to the NAR, single-family homes in the New York metropolitan area, which includes North Jersey, sold for a median $448,700 in the second quarter of 2011, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier. At the same time, however, the number of house and condo sales in New Jersey fell 23.9 percent from the second quarter of 2010, when the market was pumped up by an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers.

Nationally, home sales were down 12.7 percent and prices dropped 2.8 percent from the second quarter of 2010 to the second quarter of 2011.

“Prices are under pressure, since the buyers are all searching for a bargain,” said Carolee Chirico of ERA Douglass Realtors in Montvale. “I believe they’re afraid to overpay in a market that may continue to decline.”

“We have seen the prices in Passaic County fall fast and far,” said John Susani of Coldwell Banker Susani Realty in Paterson. “Some areas, like Paterson, are being hit harder because of higher taxes and higher unemployment in urban areas. Interest rates are lower, and still no buyers. We still have foreclosures and short sales, which need to sell before we are back to normal.”

Johnny Rojas of Century 21 JR Gold Team Realty in Garfield said well over half of the sales North Jersey’s urban neighborhoods are distressed sales, such as bank-owned properties. Those sales tend to sell at a discount of 20 percent or more to market values.

More affluent towns have fared better, said Michael Machinski, a Weichert agent in Ridgewood. He said that Ridgewood, where many residents take the commuter train to jobs in financial services, has seen “slight increases in prices.”

“The blue-collar towns, in particular those with no direct train line to New York, are still seeing price declines,” Machinski said.
…
Antoinette Gangi, a Re/Max agent in Woodcliff Lake, said a home in Hillsdale that recently went on the market at $699,000 drew about eight offers in a day and went under contract for more than the asking price. The home, she said, would have been priced at $850,000 at the peak of the housing boom.

“Sellers have finally accepted that you must price homes to sell,” Gangi said.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 187 Comments

Greenspan back at the Fed

Posted on August 10, 2011 by grim

From the WSJ:

Bernanke Overrides Opposition to Low-Rate Policy, Suggesting Weaker Voice for Fed’s Inflation Hawks

Ben Bernanke on Tuesday faced the stiffest internal opposition a Federal Reserve chairman has confronted in nearly 20 years, highlighting his determination to do whatever he sees as essential to supporting a weak economy.

For the first time since 1992, when Alan Greenspan was chairman, three out of 10 voting officials dissented from the central bank’s decision to tell the public it plans to keep short-term interest rates close to zero at least until mid-2013.

The move is aimed at boosting the economy by pushing back the expectation of when rates will rise from current record lows, thus keeping borrowing costs down and potentially driving investors into stocks. Previously, the central bank said rates would remain at record lows for an “extended period,” meaning at least several months, not years.

But Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis and Charles Plosser of Philadelphia were against the move. They have expressed concerns that the Fed’s easy-money policies risk driving inflation too high and might create a bubble like the housing boom at the root of the recent financial crisis.

Mr. Bernanke’s Fed is more open and less personality-driven than that of his predecessors, Mr. Greenspan and Paul Volcker, making dissents more likely. But the central bank has traditionally strived to avoid more than two dissents for fear they would be seen as a vote of no confidence in the chairman. Mr. Bernanke’s resolve to push ahead suggests he won’t hesitate to take bolder steps if he deems them necessary to help the economy.

“I’m absolutely confident Bernanke won’t be deterred by the three dissenters,” said Larry Meyer, a Fed governor from 1996 to 2002, now at forecasting company Macroeconomic Advisers.

Mr. Bernanke’s willingness to override three dissents could be evidence of a shift toward a majority-rule, decision-making process at the Fed, in which a minority of officials worried about higher inflation, such as Mr. Fisher, Mr. Kocherlakota and Mr. Plosser, are marginalized.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 269 Comments

Hope for a housing recovery fading fast

Posted on August 9, 2011 by grim

From CNN Money:

Housing recovery slips out of sight

Any glimmer of hope that the housing market will stage a recovery in the upcoming months has vanished, thanks to the recent spate of bad economic news that has been making headlines over the past several weeks.

According to the latest analysis of home price trends in 384 markets based on the Fiserv/Case-Shiller Indexes, it will be well into the first quarter of 2013 before median home prices across the nation will even be on par with prices from the first quarter of this year.

And that’s not saying much. During the first quarter of 2011, prices fell in 302 of the 384 housing markets tracked by the Fiserv/Case-Shiller index, dropping by an average of 5.1% year-over-year.

As a result of continued weakness on the jobs front and the debt ceiling fiasco, Fiserv pushed back its projections of a housing market turnaround by three months. Now, it doesn’t expect home prices to start gaining any ground until the second quarter of 2012.
…
Instead, Fiserv expects median home prices to continue to fall by an average of 3.1% between March 31 of this year and March 31, 2012. After that, it expects to see prices increase by 2.7% until the first quarter of 2013.

“Every piece of bad news causes more people to be more nervous,” said David Stiff, chief economist for Fiserv, which provides information management and analyses data for the financial services industry. “The stabilization of housing markets depends greatly on household confidence in the strength of the economic recovery. Unfortunately, recent economic news has done little to build confidence.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 203 Comments

Armageddon Open Discussion

Posted on August 8, 2011 by grim

With all eyes on the market this morning, why bother posting something about real estate.

Predictions for closing prices on the Dow, S&P, Gold and Oil are due in by noon.

Posted in Economics, Risky Lending | 339 Comments

This is Jersey, screw you and your courtesy

Posted on August 6, 2011 by grim

From the NY Times:

In Home Sales, Courtesy Goes a Long Way

ANYONE who has stepped into the often-stressful real estate market in New Jersey lately can hardly help being aware that it is an increasingly rude arena.

With the supercilious buyers, hypersensitive sellers, inconsiderate sales agents and adversarial lawyers, “it really can be a jungle out there,” said Roberta Plutzik Baldwin, a broker for Keller Williams Realty in Montclair, somewhat ruefully.

“In a climate like this, where so many people feel financial anxiety, and sometimes every $100 is an important issue,” she said, “anger and animus seem to come out more frequently.”

Even when people have “tons of money,” said Karen Eastman Bigos, a broker for Towne Realty Group in Short Hills, more and more are “harsh” with remarks and attitudes, especially buyers.

Yet Ms. Bigos and Ms. Baldwin were among a number of real estate professionals emphasizing that courtesy still counts a lot and can sometimes be crucial to getting a deal done at all.

“Many, many times,” Ms. Bigos said, “I’m seeing deals turn on politeness, or the lack of it.”
…
Ken Baris of Jordan Baris Realtors in West Orange said, “Huge, huge — courtesy is huge.” He recalled selling a house a couple of years ago for a professional hockey player to a buyer who had been taken with the property. The buyer had explained in a warm letter how much it would mean to live in the player’s house. Even though a competing bidder offered $100,000 more during the three-day attorney-review period mandated in New Jersey, the player went with the letter-writing buyer.
…
Even if everyone is civil, or even gracious, during the precontractual phase, things can get strained when lawyers enter the picture, several brokers pointed out. In today’s market, much of the wrangling over price actually takes place after a buyer has a home inspection done — whereupon a lawyer writes a letter demanding that the seller either pay for repairs or offer a price discount.

“A seller gets a scathing letter from an attorney saying ‘this, that and the other, and more’ has to be fixed, and a seller can be offended,” said Susan Hughes Hunter, the vice president of Lois Schneider Realtor in Summit.

“People feel this is their home, their blood, sweat and tears,” she noted, “and this letter makes it look like the house is falling down. The way attorneys speak is black-and-white, and in truth, it’s not really their job to say, ‘Oh, please, we would so love it if you would be kind enough to fix your roof.’ ”
…
Ms. Baldwin of Keller Williams says she always urges both buyers and sellers not to take such things personally, and to “think of a real estate sale as business, nothing more.”

Posted in National Real Estate | 141 Comments

All eyes on payrolls

Posted on August 5, 2011 by grim

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Jobs Gain Seen Too Small to Cut Jobless

American employers probably failed to create enough jobs in July to reduce the jobless rate, showing anxiety over government debt deliberations and a slowdown in consumer spending have shaken confidence, economists said before a report today.

Payrolls climbed by 85,000 workers after an 18,000 increase in June that was the smallest this year, according to the median forecast of 88 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before a Labor Department report. The jobless rate held at 9.2 percent after rising in each of the previous three months.

Limited job gains and concern the economic recovery will be cut short led U.S. equities to their biggest slump since February 2009 yesterday. Slowing growth puts more pressure on Federal Reserve policy makers meeting next week to try to steer the world’s largest economy away from another recession at a time when inflation is also accelerating.

“The labor market is slowing towards stall speed,” said Patrick O’Keefe, chief economist at J.H. Cohn LLP in Roseland, New Jersey. “Employers were certainly seeing a decline, or leveling off, in demand for goods and services.”

The Labor Department’s data are due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington. Bloomberg payroll survey estimates range from no change to a 150,000 increase.

Posted in Economics, Employment | 216 Comments

So much for cheap mortgage money

Posted on August 4, 2011 by grim

From CNBC:

Plunging Mortgage Rates Won’t Juice Housing

The one positive in all the uncertainty surrounding the nation’s debt was a plunge in Treasury yields, which in turn sent mortgage rates to record lows.

The 30 year fixed hit a near-low of 4.45 percent last week from 4.57 percent, and the 15 year made a new low of 3.52 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Those low rates pushed refinance applications up 7.8 percent and purchase applications up 5.2 percent (both seasonally adjusted).

So are we housing geeks now jumping for joy? All good? Maybe not so much.

“Refinance application volume increased, but even though 30-year mortgage rates are back below 4.5 percent, the refinance index is still almost 30 percent below last year’s level. Factors such as negative equity and a weak job market continue to constrain borrowers,” notes the MBA’s VP of research and economics, Michael Fratantoni. “Purchase activity increased off of a low base, returning to levels of one month ago, but remains weak by historical standards.”

So even ridiculously low rates are not exactly boosting the housing recovery; that’s because rates have been historically low for a while.

“The problem is not the price of credit,” says economist Paul Dales at Capital Economics. “The key issue is that the high unemployment rate, tight credit criteria and high share of homeowners underwater on their mortgage are all keeping a lid on demand regardless of the price of credit. With the economy now weakening once again, these constraints are not going to go away soon.”

This is why Dales sees home prices weakening further, and we see that in data today from CoreLogic. Home prices were down 6.8 percent in June year over year, if you include distressed sales (foreclosures and short sales). That is a slightly deeper fall than May’s annual number. Without distressed sales, home prices were down 1.1 percent in June annually. That’s a bit better than the 2.1 percent annual drop in May. Of course you have to remember that distressed sales make up more than a third of the housing market right now, and far higher percentages in certain local markets.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 238 Comments

Why did the Philly area fare so well?

Posted on August 3, 2011 by grim

From the Philly Inquirer:

Area’s home prices increase slightly

Prices for single-family homes in the Philadelphia region rose 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the first increase since 2008 that was not the result of government intervention in the real estate market.

An analysis of data for Prudential Fox & Roach by economist Kevin Gillen, vice president at Econsult Corp. of Philadelphia, showed second-quarter prices rose 0.9 percent in the suburbs and 0.2 percent in the city from first-quarter levels.

Gillen’s suburban data cover Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington Counties, as well as Salem and Mercer Counties in New Jersey and New Castle County, Del. – the locales in which Prudential Fox & Roach sells real estate. The data do not include condo sales.

The modest increase came after three consecutive quarters of declines totaling an average of 11 percent since the April 2010 expiration of the home-buyer tax credit. What adds to the significance of the second-quarter rise is that it occurred without any assistance from the government.

Not every county saw prices go up: Delaware and Salem Counties fell 1.3 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively; Bucks and New Castle were flat. Of the counties in which prices rose, Camden County was up 0.6 percent; Chester, 1.5 percent; Burlington, 1.6 percent; Gloucester, 2.4 percent; Montgomery, 2.5 percent; and Mercer, 6.1 percent.

“With these most recent price changes, the region’s house values have fallen by a cumulative average of 19 percent” since the market downturn began in third quarter of 2007, Gillen said.

Single-family-home sales – there were 13,558 in the second quarter – are running 18 percent below normal, he said, and the average time to sell a house in the region was 100 days, down from 120 in the first quarter.
…
What he finds notable is that city home values (excluding condos) have held up better than those in the suburbs. From their peak in 2007, city single-family-home prices have fallen 16 percent; suburban prices dropped 20 percent in the same period.

In the 1990-94 economic downturn, prices in Philadelphia fell 17 percent, while the suburbs dropped just 2 percent. City values have held up much better, even though the current downturn is more severe, Gillen said.
…
Outer-ring suburbs have seen home values drop more than closer-in suburbs. In the city, outer neighborhoods lost more value than Center City and adjacent neighborhoods.

In the 1990-94 downturn, the average home in Center City depreciated 41 percent. Today, value has dropped an average of 13 percent.

“That’s enough to actually negate the underperformance of Philadelphia homes during the 1980-2000 period,” Gillen said.

“If you were standing in 1980, and had a choice between buying a random home in Philly and a random home in the suburbs, and then were to hold that home until today, the Philadelphia home would actually outperform the suburban home in terms of total appreciation.

“If you predicted that to anyone in 1980 they would have had you committed!”

Posted in National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 174 Comments

Gone are the days of the cash-out, owners pay down debt

Posted on August 2, 2011 by grim

From HousingWire:

77% of refinancing homeowners reduce or maintain mortgage amount

Freddie Mac says 77% of homeowners who refinanced first-lien mortgages in the second quarter either reduced principal loan amounts or maintained the same loan value while benefiting from historically low interest rates.

Of those who refinanced, 51% ended up with the same loan amount, while 26% lowered their principal balance in 2Q, according to second-quarter refinance analysis from Freddie Mac.

Meanwhile, the median interest rate reduction for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was about one percentage point, or an interest rate savings of 18%. Those same borrowers will save about $1,550 in interest payments on a $200,000 loan during the first year of the refinanced loan’s life, Freddie said.

“Savvy homeowners are taking advantage of some of the lowest fixed-rates in more than 50 years to lock in interest savings,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie’s vice president and chief economist.

“Over the first half of 2011, fixed-rate mortgage rates hit a low during June, with the 30-year product averaging 4.50 percent and 15-year averaging 3.68 percent over the last four weeks of June,” Freddie said in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 197 Comments

Home ownership hits new lows

Posted on August 1, 2011 by grim

From HousingWire:

Homeownership drops to 1998 level

The U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter dropped to its lowest level in 13 years, according to the Census Bureau, with analysts expecting even more drops ahead.

The homeownership rate fell to 65.9%, down one percentage point from a year ago. It’s the lowest level measured since the first quarter of 1998. Analysts at Capital Economics said this means the homeownership rate built during the housing boom has been “completely wiped out” by its bust.

“The poor economic climate, the double dip in house prices, the high number of foreclosures and tight credit conditions are all reasons why the homeownership rate will continue to fall,” analysts said.

The rate remained highest in the Midwest at 70%, followed by 68.2% in the South, 63% in the Northeast and 60.3% in the West. Since the second quarter of 2007, the homeownership rate in the West has dropped more than four full percentage points.

Homeownership for younger consumers has become even more sparse. According to the Census Bureau, the rate among Americans younger than 35 years old dropped to 37.5% from 39% one year ago. This, analysts said, is a sign credit has tightened for younger consumers. With unemployment elevated for this cohort, as well, the rate could continue to fall in coming quarters.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 163 Comments

Otteau: NJ June contracts show improvement

Posted on July 31, 2011 by grim

From the Otteau Group:

MarketNews – July 2011 Edition

Further evidence of stabilization in the housing market occurred in June as combined purchase contracts for resales and new construction increased by 12% from one year ago. This follows a 13% increase in May, reversing a trend of declining purchase activity over the preceding year. The market’s June performance essentially matched 2008 when the recession was still in its early stages. These recent improvements in the face of weak employment growth, high unemployment and restricted access to credit suggest that housing demand is stabilizing.

Posted in Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 98 Comments

Pending home sales rebound

Posted on July 29, 2011 by grim

From Bloomberg:

Pending Sales of Previously Owned Homes in the U.S. Increased 2.4% in June

The number of contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly rose in June as buyers tried to take advantage of lower prices and borrowing costs.

The 2.4 percent rise in the index of pending home resales followed an 8.2 percent May gain, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. Economists forecast a 2 percent drop, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.
…
Estimates for pending home sales ranged from a drop of 5 percent to an increase of 8 percent, according to 39 forecasts in the Bloomberg survey. Pending sales rose 17 percent from June 2010.

From the WSJ:

Behind the Numbers: Pending Home Sales Rise

This week’s reports on the housing market have been decidedly mixed.

On Tuesday, the government said new home sales were down 1% on a monthly basis in June. Also that day, the S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 major U.S. cities was down 4.5% in May from a year earlier.

But today’s news was positive and unexpected: The National Association of Realtors’ seasonally adjusted index for pending sales of existing homes rose 2.4% on a monthly basis to a reading of 90.9 in June. Economists had forecast a 2% drop.
…
Peter Newland, economist, Barclays Capital: “The gains in May and June largely offset the sharp 11.2% decline in April, which likely owed in part to adverse weather conditions in much of the country. Indeed, the level of the index, at 90.9 in June, is back broadly in line with the (first-quarter) average….This is an encouraging report with regard to the outlook for existing home sales, which tend to lag pending sales by a month or two.”
…
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist, High Frequency Economics: “The underlying trend in existing home sales is more or less flat, and it is hard to imagine any near-term change as long as applications for mortgages to finance house purchase(s) are flat, too. In this context, the gains in pending home sales in May and June are probably best considered as nothing more than a rebound after the very late Easter and severe weather depressed the index in April.”

From the NAR:

Pending Home Sales Rise in June

Pending home sales increased in June following a wide swing down in April and then up in May, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Activity increased in the West and South but declined in the Midwest and Northeast; all regions show strong double-digit gains from a year ago.

The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, rose 2.4 percent to 90.9 in June from 88.8 in May and is 19.8 percent above the 75.9 reading in June 2010, which was the low point immediately following expiration of the home buyer tax credit. The data reflects contracts but not closings.
…
The PHSI in the Northeast slipped 0.4 percent to 68.9 in June but is 19.4 percent higher than June 2010. In the Midwest the index fell 3.7 percent to 79.7 in June but is 26.4 percent above a year ago. Pending home sales in the South increased 4.4 percent to an index of 99.2 and are 19.1 percent higher than June 2010. In the West the index rose 6.4 percent to 107.0 in June and is 16.4 percent above a year ago.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 237 Comments