“Underwater epidemic”

Posted on April 28, 2007 by grim

From BusinessWeek:

Why This Slump Is Different

First comes the reminder notice that a borrower is late on the mortgage payment. Then the phone calls start. Later a brochure arrives, maybe even a DVD, explaining the homeowner’s options. Around month four, there will be a knock on the door.

Don’t call them bill collectors. Today, the industry has a softer term, “debt counselors,” for the swelling ranks of people who are pounding the pavement trying to stem the tide of mortgage foreclosures. Says Steve Bailey, senior managing director at mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC ), who oversees the company’s $1.4 trillion portfolio: “You need to keep the revenue stream flowing and keep hope alive.”

As the housing downturn grinds on, that has become the mantra for everyone from homeowners and lenders to agents and investors. There have been previous busts, but this one is markedly different. Never before have home prices fallen so broadly: Median national home prices slipped 0.3% in March from a year earlier, and the National Association of Realtors predicts a fall of 0.7% for 2007, which would mark the first annual drop since the Great Depression era. And foreclosure filings are increasingly common, jumping 42% in 2006 to 1.2 million, calculates RealtyTrac. There’s little relief in sight; in the first quarter, 2 million homeowners were at least 30 days late on their payments, an increase of 26% from last year, according to Moody’s Economy.com Inc.

Foreclosure is never an attractive option, but now it’s even less appealing. With prices falling nationwide, lenders are wary of holding on to properties whose values could sink further. And unlike in previous cycles, a big chunk of the loans made recently are held not by federally insured thrifts or banks but by hard-charging hedge funds and other big investors that are aggressively pushing lenders to stop the bleeding. What’s more, the steep rise in second mortgages that accompanied the boom means lenders in foreclosure proceedings are increasingly fighting one another for the scraps. Such pressures are inspiring some to dream up creative alternatives to foreclosure, from tinkering with loan terms to subsidizing sellers.
…
Many of the homeowners in trouble are first-timers who bought recently or investors who got in over their heads. Vikki Kuick, a real estate agent in San Diego, has a listing on a three-bedroom condo that the owners bought as an investment property three years ago for $447,000. Payments on their adjustable-rate loans have since gone from about $2,000 a month to $3,800, while their tenant pays just $1,800. Kuick says she has an offer for $370,000, which she has taken to the couple’s lenders. If the lenders agree, the holder of the second mortgage would receive a token amount—as little as $1,000. “If it goes to foreclosure, [the second lender] may get zero,” she says.

For the first time in years, houses are hitting the market with asking prices below the value of their mortgages. Stretched owners are hoping for a so-called short sale, in which the lenders forgive the difference. National statistics are scarce, but according to a study performed for BusinessWeek by the online agency ZipRealty, there are 1,100 such listings in Miami, nearly 1,000 in Atlanta, and 700 in the Washington area. In Sacramento, real estate agent Patrick Hake counts 1,079, more than 10% of the total homes on the market. “If home values are falling, short sales are better because they can be done cheaper and quicker [than foreclosures],” says Kevin J. Kanouff, head of the bond group at mortgage consulting firm Clayton Holdings Inc.

Posted in Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 4 Comments

The sting of reassessment

Posted on April 28, 2007 by grim

From the Wall Street Journal:

Homeowners Wage a Tax Rebellion
Rising Property-Value Assessments Drive Up Appeals as House Prices Decline
By JEFF D. OPDYKE
April 28, 2007; Page B1

Falling home prices and rising property-tax assessments are fueling a grass-roots tax rebellion.

From coastal Florida to the shores of Hawaii, homeowners are lodging record numbers of appeals, fighting against rising assessments that are, in many cases, pushing up annual tax payments significantly.
…
The problem: Tax assessments didn’t keep pace with soaring property values in recent years. Now, assessments are catching up at the worst possible time, just as property prices soften. In theory, municipalities are supposed to roll back tax rates to offset rising property assessments. But many don’t do it regularly, or do so to a lesser degree than they should, says Kenneth Wilkinson, the appraiser for Lee County.

“In today’s market, I’d be lucky to get within $30,000 or $40,000 of my assessed value,” says Jack Shearer, a real-estate broker in Fort Wayne, Ind., who a month ago began the process of appealing a recent reassessment that valued his home at $245,000. Mr. Shearer says he brokered the $185,000 sale of a house in his neighborhood four months ago, yet the assessed value on that house recently came in at close to $220,000.
…
That is leading to “sticker shock,” says Stacey O’Day, Allen County’s assessor. The system “is capturing in one swoop the increase in market value that happened over five years.”

It is happening despite the fact that lawmakers in states such as Florida, New Jersey and Nebraska are proposing to cut property taxes or cap increases, or are offering rebate checks to homeowners to take some of the sting out of rising property reassessments.

Posted in New Development, Property Taxes | 10 Comments

Are consumers less likely to spend?

Posted on April 27, 2007 by grim

From Bloomberg:

Consumer Spending May Take a Hit as U.S. Home Prices Decline

Carol Francis says her customers are less likely to make big furniture purchases these days than they were at the height of the housing boom two years ago.

“The housing market right now is affecting everybody’s spending,” said Francis, a design consultant at Thomasville Home Furnishings in Woodbridge, Virginia, 25 miles south of Washington. Before, “I had people who would buy two and three bedrooms of furniture. Now many come in and just buy one piece at a time.”

With home prices in danger of falling this year for the first time in at least four decades, Americans are turning wary about borrowing against their houses to pay for vacations, education or remodeling projects. In a reversal of the “wealth effect,” people who once viewed soaring home values as a rationalization for higher spending appear to be pulling back.

“We’re in a housing recession; it’s not over and it’s going to spread to other parts of the economy, mainly consumer spending,” said Paul Kasriel, director of economic research at Northern Trust Securities in Chicago. “House prices are going to continue to fall, and that’s going to play havoc with consumers because it means the home ATM is now draining, it’s no longer filling.”
…
While home sales and construction have been falling for more than a year, the secondary impact on consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may just be kicking in.

Kevin Logan, senior market economist at Dresdner Kleinwort in New York, says the reverse wealth effect will subtract about 0.7 percentage point from consumer-spending growth this year. He expects spending in the fourth quarter to be 2.7 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with growth of 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Some economists say the consumer still has staying power.

“People have been a little too quick in looking for the consumer to cash it in,” said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York. “Housing wealth looks like it’s flattening, not collapsing.”
…
John Silva, a software salesman in Raleigh, North Carolina, makes about $45,000 a year and has struggled since his monthly mortgage payment adjusted to $1,205 from $945.

“I have a 20-year marriage anniversary coming up, but it won’t be what I had wanted it to be,” he said. “We can’t even afford going to fast-food restaurants, never mind a nice restaurant.”

Median existing-home prices will drop 0.7 percent this year from 2006, the first decline since recordkeeping began in 1968, according to the National Association of Realtors. Prices in March were below year-earlier levels for the eighth consecutive month.

“Without home prices rising any more, people will become more cautious in their spending,” said Raymond Stone, managing director at Stone & McCarthy Research in Skillman, New Jersey.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 8 Comments

New Jersey losing to competition

Posted on April 27, 2007 by grim

From the Morris Daily Record:

Economic forum: N.J. must become more business-friendly

New Jersey must become more business-friendly and create more jobs, especially in its northern region, to avoid losing out to more affordable states and to global competition.

That was the theme presented by state officials at the North Jersey Economic Growth forum at the Madison Hotel in Convent Station on Thursday.

Joan Verplanck, president of the N.J. Chamber of Commerce, said the state has suffered economically the past 10 years due to technology advances, global competition, especially with China and India, the economic downturn in the financial markets since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and existing state budget woes.

She said one thing about New Jersey will never change: “It will always be a high-cost state.”

In the past five years, New Jersey has lost some 23,000 jobs in such fields as pharmaceuticals, finance, science and information technology.
…
Gary Rose, chief of the state Office of Economic Development, said the state needs a more proactive attitude to attract and keep businesses.

“We, as a state, have to be smarter, more focused and more coordinated,” he said.

Posted in Economics | 4 Comments

Regulators demand foreclosure leniency

Posted on April 27, 2007 by grim

From Reuters:

U.S. regulators have way to deal with subprime mess

U.S. regulators who failed to restrain excessive lending in the subprime mortgage market may be able help defaulting borrowers from losing their homes by persuading banks to avoid rushing to foreclosure.

While U.S. house prices were rising in the past five years, Wall Street investors rushed into the mortgage market by bankrolling companies that made risky loans to less creditworthy borrowers.

Those loans were often bundled into mortgage backed securities and sold off to investors who farmed out the debt collection work to mortgage servicers, but because the mortgages were not funded by bank deposits, U.S. regulators had little say over lending criteria.

While many of the mortgage lenders that originated subprime loans have now gone out of business, the companies servicing the loans are still in business, and the nation’s largest banks are among their ranks.

Bank regulators may have untapped authority to scrutinize banks’ servicing practices and can pressure them to be lenient on defaulting borrowers, analysts said.

“Can the bank regulators do anything with the servicer? The answer is ‘yes’,” said Gene Ludwig, a former bank regulator who now heads Promontory Financial Group in Washington.
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The regulators “should hold the servicers’ and the investors’ feet to the fire,” Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said at a congressional hearing last week.

Posted in National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 2 Comments

The piggy bank is tapped out

Posted on April 26, 2007 by grim

From the Wall Street Journal:

Home Equity Stalls
As Housing Market Cools and Rates Rise, Owners Grow Wary Of Tapping Lines of Credit; How Banks Are Courting Borrowers
By RUTH SIMON
April 26, 2007; Page D1

After years of piling debt on their homes, Americans are becoming more cautious about using them as a piggy bank.

A cooling housing market and higher interest rates have made homeowners more reluctant to tap the equity they may have built up in their residences. The amount borrowers owe on their home-equity lines of credit has slipped in the past six months, to $561 billion at the end of March, the first such decline since 1999, according to new data from Equifax Inc. and Moody’s Economy.com Inc. Although that decline was partly offset by a pickup in fixed-rate home-equity loans, total home-equity borrowing rose just 9% in the 12 months through March, well below the 21% average annual growth rate of the past five years.

“People are feeling uncertain about the value of their home and are feeling tapped out,” says Doreen Woo Ho, president of Wells Fargo & Co.’s consumer-credit group.

Some homeowners have decided to “wait and see what happens to real estate,” says David Rupp, Bank of America Corp.’s home-equity executive, “or they may view themselves as not needing to borrow.”

During the housing boom, demand for home-equity lines of credit climbed sharply as property values rose, interest rates fell and lenders made it easy for borrowers to tap their equity for everything from home improvements to vacations. Borrowing against home equity freed up roughly $187 billion in cash per year between 2001 and 2005 that was used to pay off other debts and for new spending, according to a recent paper by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Fed economist James Kennedy.

Now, the slowdown in home-equity borrowing is leading to weaker sales in some markets for autos, building materials and electronics, says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com. The slowdown has been particularly notable in parts of the country that are suffering most from housing and mortgage corrections, including Boston, Minneapolis, Miami, Las Vegas and Washington.

Posted in National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 182 Comments

Less money for a rainy day

Posted on April 26, 2007 by grim

From the Times Trenton:

Tax plan may not bring relief

A leading Wall Street bond rating firm has warned that the Legislature’s tax relief strategy could create fiscal problems for New Jersey’s 566 municipalities in years to come.

In a report issued this week, Moody’s Investors Service cautioned that the state’s tax reform act, signed earlier this month by Gov. Jon Corzine, will increase municipal reliance on budget surpluses to balance spending plans and will force less conservative budget practices.
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“Moody’s anticipates that the new law will result in more municipalities utilizing higher levels of reserves (surplus) to support operations while diminishing their opportunity to fully replenish, thereby reducing financial flexibility.”

What it means, critics of the tax reform measure say, is less money for a rainy day.

“There is no question there is always unexpected circumstances that need to be funded and if you don’t have a surplus, that can cause consequences elsewhere in the budget,” said state Sen. Peter Inverso, R-Hamilton, who voted against the measure last month. “Where do you take it from? Do you close schools or lay off employees?”

Inverso said there have always been questions about how much surplus is necessary and some township’s may be too conservative, but “to have no surplus is clearly risky.”

In a second report issued earlier this month, Moody’s maintained the “negative outlook” on the state’s school districts, also as a re sult of the tax relief law.

“Moody’s believes that the 4 percent cap on property tax increases for school districts limits the ability to raise revenues to meet increasing expenditures and, together with existing fund balance restrictions, will present challenges to school districts to balance their budgets going forward,” the report said.

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, Politics, Property Taxes | 3 Comments

Economic shutdown for Morris Co.?

Posted on April 26, 2007 by grim

From the Daily Record:

Freeholders blast N.J. water plan

Morris County freeholders Wednesday blasted proposed state clean water and sewer rules that call for upgrading protection for nearly all area rivers and streams to the highest protection levels.

The freeholders said the new set of proposed rules would cause development to slow or cease, especially the redevelopment in towns such as Dover. This would result in the creation of less housing and fewer businesses, freeholders said. They said the rules are more state interference based on a political agenda.

The proposed rules would result in an “economic shutdown” in Morris County and northwestern New Jersey, Freeholder Gene Feyl charged. “This is outrageous,” he said.

The enforcement of the new rules raises the possibility that “Morris County could see a decline,” said Freeholder John Inglesino. Property values could fall, property taxes could rise and the ability of homeowners to get full value from their properties could decline, he said.

Inglesino said that if the proposed water protection rules are enforced, the ability to develop housing would cease in the county.

The issue is not that the board is against clean water, he said, but that “if you challenge these rules, you are labeled as being against clean water.”

Posted in New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 5 Comments

Prosecuting mortgage fraud

Posted on April 26, 2007 by grim

From the Boston Globe:

Patrick proposes mortgage fraud law

Addressing Massachusetts’ rapidly escalating number of home foreclosures for the first time, Governor Deval Patrick yesterday proposed tougher enforcement and penalties in the mortgage markets, including criminal prosecution of lenders and brokers who fraudulently induce borrowers to take out home loans.

The governor also supports giving financial aid to borrowers who are victims of such fraud and are at risk of losing their homes.

Patrick said he would soon file legislation to make mortgage fraud a crime and also threw his support behind other proposals introduced at the State House, including raising fees on mortgage brokers and lenders and using the money to hire more government regulators to scrutinize the industry.

The goal of these various efforts would be to “make sure people don’t find themselves at risk of losing their home,” he said.
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Regulators, including the US Comptroller of the Currency and Massachusetts Commissioner of Banks Steven V. Antonakes, have said some brokers and lenders may have committed fraud when they sold such loans, either by not clearly explaining to borrowers the true costs of their mortgages or by falsifying income figures to ensure borrowers qualified.

But state law does not explicitly identify mortgage fraud as a crime, which Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has said makes it difficult to prosecute criminal complaints against unscrupulous lenders. Under current law, mortgage fraud is defined as a civil offense, which carry lesser penalties.

Kevin Cuff, head of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association, said his organization would support proposals to prevent problems in the subprime industry as long as they do not restrict “legitimate uses of the lending marketplace and the access to credit to deserving homeowners.”

Posted in National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 1 Comment

April Beige Book – Second District (NY)

Posted on April 26, 2007 by grim

From the Federal Reserve:

Beige Book – Second District–New York

Economic activity in the Second District has grown steadily since the last report. Consumer prices remain relatively stable, despite some signs of acceleration in input prices and wages. Labor markets appear to have firmed, with reports of a pickup in hiring activity. Retailers indicate that sales were generally ahead of plan in March and early April and that selling prices remained steady. Tourism activity has shown signs of picking up since the last report. Two regional consumer surveys show confidence at high levels, despite retreating modestly in March.

Manufacturers report that activity slowed in March and early April and that profit margins are being squeezed by rising input prices. Housing markets continue to be mixed: prices have edged down and are generally on par with or moderately below year ago levels; however, apartment sales activity has picked up in New York City. Manhattan’s office market tightened further in the first quarter, with asking rents up more than 20 percent from a year earlier, while suburban markets have strengthened modestly overall. Finally, bankers report further weakening in loan demand, slightly tighter credit standards, and a modest increase in delinquency rates on commercial and industrial loans.
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The commercial real estate market in metropolitan New York City remained robust in the first quarter. Manhattan office vacancy rates slipped to their lowest levels since 2001 and asking rents were up 20 to 30 percent from a year ago. In addition, the sales market for Manhattan office properties is described as exceptionally strong. Most suburban office markets tightened slightly in the first quarter: in Westchester and Fairfield Counties and on Long Island, vacancy rates edged down and rents rose roughly 5 percent from a year earlier; however, northern New Jersey’s vacancy rate edged up above 17 percent, while rents rose 3 percent.

Housing markets continue to be mixed. New York State Realtors report that statewide sales activity in early 2007 has been moderately lower than a year earlier, while the median sales price was virtually unchanged. A northern New Jersey real estate contact notes that, while many high-end homes (over $1.5 million) have languished on the market, there are pockets of strength for more moderately priced homes. A contact in New Jersey’s homebuilding industry notes that, while homes priced at under $300,000 have been selling well, the overall market remains soft; new home prices are reported to be down from a year ago, and cancellation rates are said to be high, particularly in active-adult (retirement) communities. Finally, Manhattan’s co-op and condo market continued to show resilience in the first quarter: sales activity rose sharply, and the inventory of listings, though still fairly high, continued to decline. However, selling prices for apartments, which had risen moderately throughout 2006 were reported to be virtually unchanged from a year earlier.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | Comments Off on April Beige Book – Second District (NY)

NJ Foreclosures Up 51.56% (YOY) in Q1

Posted on April 25, 2007 by grim

From RealtyTrac:

More Than 430,000 Foreclosure Filings Reported in Q1

RealtyTrac(TM), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released first-quarter data from its 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, showing more than 430,000 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — reported nationwide during the first three months of the year, up 27 percent from the previous quarter and up 35 percent from the first quarter of 2006. The nation’s quarterly foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 264 households was the highest quarterly foreclosure rate since RealtyTrac began issuing its report 27 months ago.

“The rise in foreclosure activity was quite dramatic and widespread in the first quarter, with 37 out of the 50 states reporting year-over-year increases,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Certainly the surge in subprime defaults has contributed to the overall rise in foreclosures; we estimate that more than 50 percent of the foreclosure activity we charted in the first quarter was from subprime loans. However, it’s not just low-end homes that are going into foreclosure; we’re seeing a rising percentage of foreclosures with an estimated market value of more than $750,000.”

A total of 437,498 foreclosure filings were reported in the first quarter of 2007 up from 345,554 in the fourth quarter of 2006 and up from 323,101 in the first quarter of 2006.

U.S. Foreclosure Market Report – Q1 2007

1 for %Change %Change
Rate every from Q4 from Q1
Rank State Name #HH 2006 2006

— United States 264 26.61 35.41
1 Nevada 75 65.72 128.59
2 Colorado 111 5.98 23.88
3 Georgia 138 9.73 -8.31
4 Michigan 143 32.66 29.57
5 California 152 68.01 172.86
6 Florida 162 55.20 52.37
7 Arizona 186 41.12 88.66
8 Ohio 198 5.84 5.88
9 Texas 202 6.07 -0.91
10 New Jersey 209 14.24 51.56

Foreclosure Activity for the Nation’s 100 Largest MSAs – Q1 2007

Rate 1/every /Ntl
Rank MSA #HH Avg

1 DETROIT/LIVONIA/DEARBORN 51 5.231
2 LAS VEGAS/PARADISE 57 4.624
3 RIVERSIDE/SAN BERNARDINO 68 3.899
…
19 EDISON, NJ 143 1.854
…
25 CAMDEN, NJ 154 1.717
…
55 NEWARK, NJ 273 0.969

Posted in National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 4 Comments

Options on the other side of the river

Posted on April 25, 2007 by grim

From Bloomberg:

Hoboken’s Luxury-Condo Builders Get Lifeline From New Residents

Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando helped make Hoboken, New Jersey, famous. Now designer Michael Graves and builder Robert Toll are making the waterfront town across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan a haven for the rich and famous.

Hoboken, a city with working-class roots, long served as a refuge of junior Wall Street analysts. Its newer residents include Governor Jon Corzine and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, as builders convert apartments into luxury condominiums with fitness clubs, doormen and shuttles to New York City-bound trains and ferries.

Demand for condos in the square-mile city of 40,000 residents is a lifeline for builders such as Toll Brothers Inc. that are weathering a yearlong decline in the U.S. housing market. Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers has three condo projects under way in Hoboken. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. already has sold 33 of the 37 condo units in the W Hoboken, a luxury hotel that it plans to open next year.
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Corzine, a former chief executive officer of Goldman, Sachs & Co., moved to a rental in Hudson Tea when he was divorcing in 2002. He may run state affairs from the condo or from the governor’s mansion in Princeton when he is released from the hospital following his April 12 automobile crash, said Tom Shea, his chief of staff.

At Hudson Tea, where Manning also lives, a 1,300-square-foot (120-square-meter) two-bedroom condo with cherry hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen with six-burner stove, marble bath, and 13-foot (4-meter) ceilings goes for $1.5 million. That’s about $1,154 a square foot. Manhattan condos sold for an average of $1,142 a square foot last year, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.
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The maritime industry crumbled in the 1970s as companies moved to bigger ports with deeper waters. A decade later, students began flocking to Hoboken for its affordable, renovated brownstones and townhouses and its easy access to New York.

Junior Wall Streeters moved in as the number of housing units in Hoboken jumped 14 percent from 1990 to 2000. The 2000 U.S. Census showed that 98 percent of the city’s housing units were occupied, 77 percent by renters.

Posted in New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 8 Comments

Stemming the outflow of young adults

Posted on April 25, 2007 by grim

From the NY Times:

Staten Island Considers New Plans to Keep Its Youth From Leaving

To reverse the flow of younger people leaving Staten Island, the borough should entice developers to build more affordable apartments close to the ferry, according to a study released yesterday.
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The St. George neighborhood near the ferry to Manhattan is the closest thing to a downtown district in the borough, but it lacks the vibrancy of other sections of New York City that have become havens for young professionals and artists, said Jonathan Bowles, who wrote the study for the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy group.

What is needed, the study said, is an immediate change in zoning rules, which have prevented more dense developments near the waterfront.

“If Staten Island is going to hang on to its young people and attract young professionals from elsewhere, it’s going to have to have a dynamic neighborhood with new amenities,” said Mr. Bowles, who presented the center’s findings at a conference of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation, which commissioned the study. “In a lot of ways, Staten Island is doing very well right now, but under the hood there are a number of mounting problems.”

Staten Island is the city’s fastest-growing borough. That growth has produced new woes, Mr. Bowles said, like rapidly rising housing prices, congested roads and a shortage of high-paying jobs. The lack of a comprehensive plan to solve those problems is very likely to continue driving younger people away, he said.

In the 1990s, the borough’s population increased by 17 percent to about 450,000, but the number of residents ages 18 to 34 decreased by 5 percent, according to the study. That shift reduced the share of residents ages 18 to 34 to fewer than 23 percent from about 28 percent. Many of those who left moved to New Jersey.

Posted in National Real Estate, New Development | 3 Comments

March Existing Home Sales & February C&S Home Prices

Posted on April 24, 2007 by grim

March Existing Home Sales are due out at 10:00am EST this morning. The consensus estimates put the figure at 6.45m, down from 6.69m in February.

From MarketWatch:

Home prices fall at fastest rate in 13 years

U.S. home prices continued to fall in February, with 17 of 20 major metro areas seeing lower prices in February compared with January, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday.

Prices are down 1.5% in 10 major cities in the past year, the fastest decline in 13 years.
In 20 major cities, prices are down 1% in the past year.

The biggest declines over the past year were in Detroit, Boston and Washington. Seattle, Portland and Charlotte have seen the biggest increases in the past year.

“Declines in home prices are showing no signs of turnaround,” S&P said in a release.

A year ago, prices were rising 14%.

The report comes amid heightened concerns about the housing market.

Falling home prices will exacerbate credit problems, because many borrowers will not be able to refinance their loan or sell their house because they owe more than it’s worth.

The 10-city Case-Shiller index turned negative in mid-1990 and remained negative for much of the next three years. Prices did not return to the peak seen in October 1989 until January 1998.

The Case-Shiller index is considered to be a superior gauge of home prices compared with the median sales-price data released by the Commerce Department or National Association of Realtors, because it tracks multiple sales on the same property and is therefore not influenced by a different mix of homes sold in a period.

From MarketWatch:

Sales of existing homes plunge 8.4% in March

Sales of existing homes plunged 8.4% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.12 million, the lowest in nearly four years, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday. It was the largest percentage decline in sales since January 1989. Economists were expecting sales to fall to 6.45 million. The median price of an existing home fell 0.3% year-over-year to $217,000. The inventory of unsold homes on the market fell 1.6% to 3.75 million, representing a 7.3-month supply. Sales of condos were unchanged, while sales of single-family homes dropped 9.5%. Sales fell in all four regions. “This number reflects subprime lending” as well as the cold weather in February, said David Lereah, chief economist for the real estate group.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 375 Comments

Housing downturn “deeper and broader than previously anticipated”

Posted on April 24, 2007 by grim

From Reuters:

U.S. new home market may take until 2009 to rebound: S&P

Recovery of the U.S. market for new homes could take another year if trouble in the adjustable-rate subprime mortgage market spreads to other types of residential lending, credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday.

“We do not expect to see a recovery for most rated home builders until 2008, under the best of circumstances,” the rating agency said in a research note. “In fact, a rebound could easily slide into 2009 if a subprime contagion spreads to the Alt-A and prime products.”

Rating agency Moody’s raised its forecast on Friday for losses on risky subprime loans originated in 2006 to between 6 percent and 8 percent of the loan principal. In March, Moody’s had forecast losses of 5.5 percent to 6 percent.
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S&P said that heightened media attention to bankruptcies of some subprime lenders and rising subprime foreclosures have spooked home buyers. And creditors are concerned that buyer wariness may exacerbate an already sharp decline in the overall U.S. housing market.

Problems could spread to Alt-A market and prime borrowers. Alt-A loans, also called low-doc or no-doc loans, are made to borrowers without getting documentation to prove a borrower’s income or ability to repay the mortgage. Prime borrowers have proven good credit and credit histories.

Tighter lending requirements could strangle the already weak demand for homes, drive up the supply of homes for sale while driving down prices and pressure the overall U.S. economy, S&P said.
…
The rating agency said the duration of the downturn would be determined by how well the economy and job growth hold up over the next year.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 40 Comments