Archive for May 29th, 2009
Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
The National Association of Realtors reported May 28 that home purchases rose 0.3% in April (the second increase in the past three months). Is this the latest sign that the housing market might be in recovering? Well, it depends on where you live. First-time buyers and investors are jumping in to take advantage of low prices in California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and northern Virginia. But the pace of sales almost everywhere else is slowing.
The Realtors don’t break out monthly data by state, but all the action in the first quarter seemed to be happening in California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona, which showed a combined 68.4% increase in sales compared to the first quarter 2008. U.S. sales for the nation dropped 6.8% during that period, but if you subtract those four states, the decline would have been more like 19.1%.
Some of the sales declines in the first quarter are startling. Hawaii home purchases fell off 40%. North Carolina was down 37%. And Washington prices fell 35%. Virginia and Minnesota, which both saw first quarter sales increases of about 12%, were the only other states in positive territory.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
Mortgage rates burst past the 5% mark for a 30-year fixed-rate loan late in May, peaking at an average of 5.45% on Thursday. It was the highest level reached by mortgage rates this year, but on Friday they fell back to 5.27%.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
Investors in mortgage securities swung from irrational exuberance to equally irrational pessism. Not long ago, they seemed to have concluded that just about every house in America was going to be foreclosed on. Now some rationality is returning. People are realizing that there is some real value in some of the private-label residential mortgage-backed securities that were issued during the go-go years, 2004-2007. Notice I said “some,” not all. There are plenty of losses left to be felt in the housing market. I wrote about investors’ efforts to pick out the sweet fruit from the lemons in a news story. Let me know what you think.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
After a rough 2008, Manhattan’s property investment market has continued to take it on the chin thus far in 2009. Real estate sales in Manhattan reached a 25-year low in 2009’s first quarter, according to a new report by Massey Knakal Realty Services.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
Industrial property sales in San Joaquin County in California’s Central Valley have been practically nonexistent this year, but USAA Real Estate Co. just broke the monotony with the acquisition of a 658,000-square-foot distribution facility in the city of Tracy, about an hour east of San Francisco.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
The current economic turmoil might well have the commercial property industry feeling pain for some time to come. But according to a newly-hired executive with Buchanan Street Partners, the tumult will also create an environment rife with opportunities.
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Continue Reading May 29th, 2009
In this extreme buyer’s market, you can talk down the price of everything from flat-screen televisions to summer rentals. When it comes to home improvement, though, haggling is as risky as ever. Even if contractors are more willing to lower their prices nowadays, they’re still liable to get angry and to cut corners on the job.
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