The Group That May Push the Foreclosure Rate Sky High
The rising U.S. foreclosure rate has prompted an outbreak of proposed bills and programs from Congress and local lawmakers to help families save their homes–but according to Bloomberg, the average American family isn’t in nearly as much as trouble as the country’s military families. Foreclosures in towns with high populations of U.S. soldiers are growing rapidly–at a pace almost four times the national average, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. Why? For many of the same reasons the rest of the country is struggling with foreclosure issues: Lured by the promise of low rates and simple terms, military families signed…
Online Real Estate Brokers vs. Traditional Agents: Is This War?
As part of the settlement announced Tuesday in an antitrust case between the Justice Department and the National Association of Realtors, non-Internet-based brokers will now be allowed greater use of multiple listing services, according to the New York Times. Online brokers felt "that the industry’s practices have denied them the chance to make full use of the multiple listing services," the Times said. It seems that wasn’t the only complaint online brokers had about the industry. Today–while perusing the Internet for my daily housing news fix–I stumbled across this press release from ForSaleByOwner.com, in which the site offers data "to…
Is Affordable Housing in Danger?
Foreclosures have been hurting the single-family home market for months–and making headlines as families lost their homes due to loan resets and sinking equity. The historically high foreclosure rate has caused growth in the rental market as former homeowners look for a new place to live; but the effect on the apartment market hasn’t all been positive. Because apartment buildings have owners, too–and those owners sometimes default and enter into foreclosure–renters can get kicked out with little notice. And as some recent reports indicate, the small multifamily building market–which offers affordable housing options for families in many cities–may be in…
Homebuilder Woes Have More Than One Cause–And More Than One Effect
Homeowners, of course, aren’t the only ones who have suffered during the U.S. housing decline; and reports of builders struggling to make ends meet as residential construction dwindle are growing more frequent. But lower community home prices and reduced sales of local homes aren’t the only factors to blame. Take, for example, Texas. The state withstood much of the housing decline and actually added construction jobs: 23,000 since the end of 2006. But in the first three months of the year, builders broke ground on 5,218 homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That’s less than half of the construction starts…
Why Aren’t Lower Prices Translating into Higher Sales?
The hotly-anticipated National Association of Realtors report on home sales was released this morning–and, as expected, it showed that home sales fell last month. Sales of pre-existing homes declined to an annual pace of 4.89 million. The good news: That’s only a 1 percent fall from March’s revised 4.94 million reading. The bad news: The existing home sales rate is still almost 18 percent less than April 2007. That includes single-family homes, townhomes, co-ops and condos; and it suggests the housing slump is dragging on, even as we approach the year’s halfway point. That news wasn’t encouraging–but it wasn’t the…
The One Thing That Can Turn the Housing Slump Around in Seriously Troubled Markets Is …
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight released data today that showed home prices had yet again dropped in the biggest quarterly decline since the OFHEO started keeping records 17 years ago. A few highlights: Home prices dropped 3.1 percent in the first quarter compared to 2007. Prices declined in 43 states. California (-10.6 percent), Nevada (-10.3 percent), Florida (-8.1 percent) and Arizona (-5.5 percent) showed the most severe depreciations, according to USA Today. The culprit? That pesky housing supply of unsold homes. "The large overhang of real estate inventory awaiting sale continues to force price declines in many areas,…
Will Deals on Homes Help Fix the Housing Market?
Homes are more affordable than ever, and buyers have more reasonable financing options for high-priced properties, according to recent reports. But what does that mean for the overall market? Falling prices are making homes more affordable than ever in some cities, according to he latest Housing Opportunity Index released Tuesday by Wells Fargo and the National Association of Home Builders. Families earning the median household income–$61,500–could afford 53 percent of all homes sold in the first three months of 2008 in the U.S. In the same period in 2007, just 44 percent of families could, according to CNNMoney.com. Homes prices,…
A New Resident Who Could Cause Big Problems (Or Help Buildings Run Smoothly)
On Sunday, the New York Times ran an article about neighborhood-based social networking Web sites and their impact on the rental/multifamily community. This isn’t a new phenomenon–shortly after moving into my condo building nearly three years ago, I was told we had a message board-based Web site for unit owners, which I promptly joined–but the article got me wondering about the long-term success and potential impact of such sites. One of the online communities listed in the article–LifeAt–currently only has five Chicago properties on its roster. I don’t live in any of them. So I checked out another one of…
Does the Rise in Multifamily Starts Indicate the Slump is Over?
The Commerce Department announced Friday that multifamily housing had helped new home construction grow 8.2 percent in April, just one day after the National Association of Home Builders said homebuilder confidence currently is hovering only one point above its lowest-ever level. Welcome to the mixed-signal housing market! Multifamily housing starts rose an impressive 36 percent in April after falling 35 percent the month before. That helped balance out the news that single-family home starts dropped to a 17-year low in April–and, despite the single-family decline, led some to call the Commerce Department data proof that the housing market might finally…
How Money-Strapped Unit Owners May Be Killing the Condo Market
Today’s New York Times article about the problems condo owners are facing as the economy slows sheds light on a growing issue: Defaults and foreclosures and the multifamily market. For months, we’ve heard about how bad foreclosures can be for a neighborhood of single-family homes: Unprepared to deal with property maintenance, banks sometimes let foreclosed properties fall into disrepair. A foreclosed home drags the value of areas homes down and can hurt the neighborhood–for every one foreclosure out of 100 properties, the violent crime rate grows by 2.33 percent, according to a 2005 study by Dan Immergluck of the Georgia…