Monthly Home Sales Rise 230,000 In February 2009

Category: Housing Market

Posted on in Housing Market

Monthly Home Sales Rise 230,000 In February 2009

Each month, the National Association of REALTORS® releases a study called the Existing Home Sales report.  It’s a detailed look at “used” home sale data from all four regions of the country. Among the key findings of each Existing Home Sales report is something called the “median sales price”, the statistical price point at which half of the homes in the U.S. sold for more, and half sold for less.  Last month, the median sales price in the United States fell to $165,400, down 15.5 percent from a year ago. Nevertheless, just because the median sales price is lower from last year doesn’t mean that the housing market is losing steam. The median sales price is just the middle point of all home sales in all U.S. markets.  By definition, it groups New York City and Danville, Illinois; Los Angeles and Cheyenne — markets that have little do with one another.  When median sales prices are falling, it doesn’t point to housing weakness, per […]

by jberman
Posted on in Housing Market

Have Home Prices Already Bottomed? New Housing Permits…

There’s a mixed message in February’s Housing Starts data and it may be a good sign for home sellers in the near-term. As reported by the government, new home construction rose by 22 percent last month.  The press is running with the headline number, calling it evidence of a market bottom. A more thorough inspection, however, reveals a different story. The 22 percent figure applies to all homes built — including apartment building units.  Isolating residential units, February’s housing starts rose by just 1 percent.  Furthermore, the data’s margin of error is 11 percent. Statistically, we can’t know if residential housing starts really rose last month, or if it fell instead.  What we do know, though, is that the number of building permit requests rose. Permits to build single-family homes were up 11 percent in February nationwide. To home sellers, the rise in building permits may confirm that a housing market turnaround is already underway.  Builders wouldn’t be putting new inventory on the […]

by jberman
Posted on in Housing Market

Fannie Mae Removes 4-Financed Property Limit

Friday, Fannie Mae rolled-back one of its least popular mortgage guidelines updates of the last 12 months. Effective March 1, 2009, real estate investors can once again own and finance up to 10 individual properties.  The restriction reversal does come with new minimum requirements, however. Homeowners buying a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th or 10th home must meet the following standards, as set forth by Fannie Mae: 720 credit score 25% downpayment for a 1-unit (30% for a 2-4 unit) No mortgage delinquencies in the last 12 months 6 months of reserves for each investment property In other words, Fannie Mae is re-opening the lending spigot for real estate investors with good credit, a sizeable downpayment and ample reserves. According to Fannie Mae, the change rationale is so that experienced investors can “play a key role in the housing recovery”.  Until now, foreclosure auctions have gone at less than full speed because investors unable to pay cash have been halted by […]

by jberman
Posted on in Housing Market

Indymac pulls out of the Construction to Perm Business

The reverb from the so-called “Subprime Meltdown” continues today. I received this email about an hour ago. Today, Indymac Bank is announcing the suspension of residential Construction- to-Permanent (CTP) loan production effective February 1, 2008. As you may know, Indymac has been committed to the CTP product for 13 years, and it has been and continues to be a well-performing product for us, both in terms of profitability and credit performance. However, given our need to carefully manage our balance sheet and preserve our strong capital position (in light of current market conditions), we need to limit our loan production almost exclusively to products that are immediately saleable into the secondary market and, therefore, have independently decided that this is a prudent step to take at this time. Importantly, we are not being compelled to curtail CTP lending due to any performance issues or external pressures; when industry conditions ultimately stabilize, we look forward to restarting CTP production. More fallout […]

by jberman
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