Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers are set to continue to grapple with the best response to the rising tide of home foreclosures. But the Bush administration says it has a solution in place: A nine-month old mortgage refinancing program run by the Federal Housing Administration.
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Big home improvement chain Lowe’s posted weak numbers today, a 19% decline in earnings, same store sales were down 8%. The stock dropped 2%. It was already 30% off its peak from last year. A couple of interesting points were made about the housing market.
The company says it monitors sales in what they consider overpriced and not-overpriced housing markets and the sales slow down is now spreading from the already hard hit states (Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada) to the other places that didn’t have huge home price run ups such as the Midwest. In fact the few markets still doing well include oil-rich Texas and Oklahoma.
The company said the difference in sales declines between the overpriced home markets and not-overpriced was declining. Meaning everybody’s doing worse. The company has been tailoring its product mix more toward home improvement projects that require relatively little work. They have a new carpet promotion, for example. Major fix up projects like cabinetry are down.
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Has the giant and once-red hot California market hit bottom? I am reminded by the words of my former colleague who recently decided to put his house on the market after retiring. I asked if this was the time to sell. He said during the last downturn, in the 1990s, it took eight years for his house to regain its former value. He didn’t want to wait that long.
But the latest numbers from housing research DataQuick shows home sales rebounding. A total of 15,615 homes were sold in Southern California, up 22% from the previous month. Some caveats to the data: that sales number was still down 19% from April of last year. It represents that weakest April since 1995.
Prices too are still declining, the median home price for the month was $385,000, down 28% from the same period last year. But DataQuick noticed some positive signs. Two-thirds of the homes sold were under $500,000 in price. Which means families and first time buyers were stepping up to take advantage of some the steep discounts in the market recently.
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
The housing implosion is nowhere near over. In 75 of the 100 top U.S. cities, prices are expected to fall in the next 12 months according to Fiserv Lending Solutions.
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Single-family home prices dropped 7.7% in the first quarter in the largest year-over-year decline since the National Association of Realtors began reporting prices in 1982.
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Alvarez & Marsal said today that Richard Hollowell has joined the firm’s real estate advisory services practice as a managing director. Read more »
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Seattle-headquartered Costco Wholesale Corp. has opened the doors of a new store on Lone Hill Ave. in San Dimas, about 30 miles outside of Los Angeles, Calif. Read more »
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
Demand for new homes collapsed last year. Next up could be a similar drop in the rest of the construction market — and that could be the latest drag on an already sputtering U.S. economy
Continue Reading Add comment May 19th, 2008
According to The New York Times, quoting unnamed sources, the mega-deal for West Side railyards on the West Side of Manhattan may have a new developer. Read more »
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