Archive for March 25th, 2009
Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
New-home sales nationally jumped 4.7% in February, the first month-to-month jump since July, according to the Commerce Dept. Many home builders have lowered their prices or just built smaller homes to compete with bank-owned properties. That’s why the median new home price sagged 18% from February, 2008 to just over $200,000.
Meanwhile, in the not-so Golden Anymore State. The California Association of Realtors posted some surprising stats today. Existing, single-family home sales increased 83 percent in February to an annualized rate of 620,410 homes. The statewide median price decreased 40.8 percent to $247,590
California’s Unsold Inventory Index fell to 6.5 months in February, compared with 15.3 months in February 2008
The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home declined to 51.5 days in February 2009, compared with 69.3 days in February 2008.
“Home sales in California continue to be considerably stronger than the nationwide sales figures,” said California Realtors’ President James Liptak. “The market will continue to register large, but diminishing year-to-year percentage gains in the coming months, as current sales are compared against the extremely low numbers that prevailed during the early months of the credit crunch.”
“The California median price has declined by a larger margin than the nationwide median price,” said the association’s Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “This can be attributed to the under $500,000 portion of the market, which has experienced larger price declines than the other market segments due to the large share of distressed homes for sale.”
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Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
If HOPE for Homeowners, the foreclosure-prevention plan passed last summer, was a soft drink, it would be New Coke. If it was an automobile, it would be an Edsel. A movie? Howard the Duck.
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Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
Sales of newly constructed homes unexpectedly rose in February, rebounding nearly 5% after sinking to the lowest level on record in January, according to a government report released Wednesday.
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Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
Atlanta developer Cousins Property is promising to return any down payments to condo buyers if their property declines in value over the next three years.
The program is being offered at www.10Terminus.com a condo tower in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborwood where units start at $300,000. Buyers can put as little as 5% down. Cousins is providing loans at 4% interest. If the buyer wants out within three years and the property has not gained any value, he can just hand the keys back to Cousins.
In another unusual deal, Cousins will also allow a buyer to not make payments for a full year, as long as they are trying to sell another house and put 20% down on the condo.
Cousins says this approach makes more sense for them than merely slashing prices or selling units in bulk in an auction, as many condo developers have done.
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Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
John Krush has joined Newmark Knight Frank as executive managing director, responsible for overseeing the firm’s project management division in the New York tri-state region.
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Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
A 60-unit, 112,000-square-foot industrial park in Torrance, Calif., has been acquired by Koll/PER–a subsidiary of The Koll Co.–and the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho.
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