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Homeowners in Battleground States Dogged By Underwater Mortgages
Tweet Share on Facebook May 25, 2012 CommentDespite positive numbers out of the housing market this week, optimism about a brighter future for housing may have been tempered by a not-so-encouraging figure released Thursday: $1.2 trillion.
That's the collective amount owed by underwater homeowners above and beyond the value of their homes, according to real estate web site Zillow, a staggering figure and evidence of a phenomenon that touches nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages.
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Should States Be Chided for How They Use Their Mortgage Settlement Money?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 24, 2012 CommentThere's been quite a bit of chatter recently about how states are allocating their share of the National Mortgage Settlement, which required five of the nation's biggest banks to shell out $25 billion over allegations of improper foreclosure practices.
According to some reports, many cash-strapped states are "diverting" their share of the settlement—about $2.5 billion—to plug budget holes instead of investing in homeowner relief and programs aimed at preventing future foreclosure abuse.
According to settlement documents, funds paid to the states are for "purposes intended to avoid preventable foreclosures, to ameliorate the effects of the foreclosure crisis, [and] to enhance law enforcement efforts to prevent and prosecute financial fraud."
But what constitutes "effects of the foreclosure crisis?" That's the rub, according to some experts, who say states aren't in the wrong when allocating their piece of the mortgage settlement pie to non-housing related programs or even to shore up battered balance sheets.
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NAHB: More New Home Sales Means More Jobs, Tax Revenue
Tweet Share on Facebook May 23, 2012 CommentMore good news came out of the housing market Wednesday—sales of newly built homes ticked up more than 3 percent in April, according to the Commerce Department, exceeding economists' expectations and providing more credence to the notion that the market is finally stabilizing.
New home sales increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 343,000, which, while still far below the 700,000 economists say indicates a healthy market, is still good news for the broader economy.
"What the numbers mean today is that we're on this path to probably have 60,000 more new homes built this year than last," Crowe says. "We'll get to about 360,000 this year and we barely got to 300,000 last year."
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Home Prices Shoot Up—Is It Time To Make Your Move?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2012 CommentWatching the housing market over the past several years has been a bit like watching paint dry, with the most exciting adjectives used to describe it being: flat, slow, and steady.
But today's existing home sales data could be an inflection point for the housing market. Sales increased more than 3 percent over March numbers, the inventory of homes for sale was down, and potentially the biggest piece of news, median home prices were up. A lot.
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Home Prices Improve (Slightly) in Battleground States
Tweet Share on Facebook May 18, 2012 CommentAt the height of the contentious GOP presidential nomination race, we took a look at home prices in the nation's battleground states, states likely to get a little extra attention from candidates looking to win more votes come general election time.
Some of those states also happened to be the hardest hit by the housing and foreclosure crises, which left deep economic and social wounds that are still healing today.
Back then, battleground states such as Nevada, Florida, Michigan, and Iowa saw double-digit home price declines, with Nevada reporting a more than 40 percent loss in property values.
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House Hunters Favor the 'Burbs Over Big Cities
Tweet Share on Facebook May 18, 2012 CommentHouse hunters sure are an enigma.
While most Americans in the market for a new place say they want the benefits of city living—public transportation, shorter commutes, nearby restaurants and shops—what they end up searching for is a different story.
According to data from real estate website Trulia, when house hunters scour the Internet for potential properties, much of the focus shifts from city-center hubs to the allure of more space and lower prices in the suburbs.
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Realtors Rally Near Capitol Hill to Save Homeownership
Tweet Share on Facebook May 17, 2012 Comment (5)WASHINGTON, D.C.— A sea of blue lapped against the foot of the Washington Monument Thursday as more than 10,000 blue-shirted Realtors from across the country descended on the nation's capital to pressure Congress to keep housing at the top of legislators' priorities in coming months.
According to organizers, the rally—sponsored by the National Association of Realtors and complete with a jumbotron, DJ, and its own Twitter hashtag—was the largest assembly of Realtors NAR has ever recorded in one place.
"We have never done anything of this magnitude," said Tom Salomone, master of ceremonies and candidate for 2016 NAR president. "[It shows] we're the voice of real estate."
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HARP 3.0 Rumor Mill: What a Possible Extension Means for Homeowners
Tweet Share on Facebook May 10, 2012 Comment (1)Ever since President Obama proposed a new refinance program in his State of the Union address in January, one that would help "every responsible homeowner," there has been chatter about HARP 3.0, a third version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program originally announced in 2009.
Recently those rumors have intensified, as the Obama administration steps up support for legislative proposals to extend refinancing to more homeowners.
Although no specifics have been given, there is general agreement that HARP 3.0 would allow underwater homeowners to refinance even if their mortgages were not owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, something that had been a prerequisite with HARP 1.0 and 2.0.
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Will Mortgage Principal Reductions Work?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 10, 2012 Comment (3)Mortgage principal reductions are in the news again as Bank of America announced this week that it will offer them to more than 200,000 borrowers. Should more widespread programs come, principal forgiveness is most likely to be offered to borrowers who are deeply underwater and who have already experienced some level of financial distress, just as Bank of America detailed earlier this week.
But do these offers provide any value? Who decides who is eligible? Will borrowers still be "underwater" if they do get one?
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Marijuana Growers Moving to Suburbia
Tweet Share on Facebook May 10, 2012 Comment (9)A quiet, suburban neighborhood is probably the last place you would expect to find a den of druggies with an indoor marijuana farm.
But thanks to a brutal housing crisis that has driven down home prices and left foreclosures littering the streets of many once-tony neighborhoods, organized marijuana growers are moving their operations to America's suburbs to take advantage of affordable, spacious houses, according to a recent New York Times report.
