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Miami Condo Market on the Mend
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2012 Comment (6)Once a poster child of the housing boom and bust, it seems Miami has done an about face since being branded one of the country's worst housing markets.
From being awash in unsold condos and foreclosures, Miami's downtown has morphed into a thriving mecca of bustling sales activity, a new report says, putting the South Florida town on the map among the nation's most active and lucrative housing markets.
"Downtown Miami continues to defy national trends in real estate economics," said Craig Werley of Focus Real Estate Advisors, the firm that conducted the study. "This is particularly remarkable considering the foreclosure crisis that continues to grip much of the rest of the region and state."
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Spring Housing Market Seeing Green Shoots
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2012 Comment (2)The spring buying season is just around the corner, and this year the housing market landscape might not be as daunting for buyers and sellers, according to a new report.
The number of homes for sale has been steadily creeping downward, helping list prices stabilize and giving both buyers and sellers a little more confidence. Overall, national inventories have dropped more than 20 percent since last year, according to a Realtor.com report, and houses are staying on the market for shorter periods. List prices are looking up, too, rising almost 7 percent since last February.
"The stage is set for a broad-based move towards recovery should these conditions continue in 2012," the report said. "The nation's housing markets as a whole are in better shape today than at any time since the 2009-2010 tax credits."
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Homebuyers, Sellers Getting a Spring in Their Step
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2012 Comment (2)It's not just home sales numbers that are looking up for the housing market. Both would-be homebuyers and sellers are feeling a little more confident about their prospects going into the spring buying season this year, according to some recent industry surveys.
About 60 percent of people surveyed in February reported having positive views about the housing market and 70 percent said they expected home values to recover a bit over the next couple of years, according to a Prudential Real Estate survey released Tuesday, first reported by Bloomberg.
Just under two-thirds of people said real estate was a good investment, up from just over half of respondents last year, the real estate firm reported.
Is that a sign housing is headed out of its long slump? Possibly. According to Bloomberg, this is the second year in a row confidence in the housing market has improved.
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More Homeowners Choosing to Spruce Up Rather Than Sell
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2012 Comment (2)Consumers have been feeling a little more confident about their finances lately, and that's translated into an uptick in home remodeling over the past several months, according to recent data.
After being in the post-recession doldrums, the number of Americans spending cash to spruce up their homes is recovering, according the National Association of Home Builders, and it's not just fixing a sagging gutter here or a broken patio paver there.
The association's latest Remodeling Market Index rose to about 47, a big improvement from the quarter before, but just under the 50 benchmark, which indicates healthier demand for remodeling projects.
"There are a good number of people who are doing minor additions in the $10,000 to $25,000 range," says Nissa Hiatt of NAHB. "They might not be doing the entire floor of the house, but maybe [adding] the kitchen that they've always wanted."
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HUD's Donovan: More to Be Done to Help Homeowners Refinance
Tweet Share on Facebook February 29, 2012 CommentMore needs to be done to help homeowners cope with steep home price declines and underwater mortgages, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said at an event hosted by the National Journal Wednesday.
While more than 13 million homeowners have taken advantage of various government refinancing programs since April 2009, 1 in 5 Americans still owes more on a mortgage than the home is worth, the "single most lasting scar" of the financial crisis and housing market meltdown, he said.
"There is more to be done," Donovan added, urging Congress to take action on policy proposals by the Obama administration designed to expand refinancing and loan modification programs outside government-backed loans and help more homeowners take advantage of rock-bottom interest rates.
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Home Prices Hit New Lows
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2012 CommentThe latest home price data has disappointed again, confirming what we already knew about the housing market in 2011 and what we can expect in 2012: Housing had a miserable run last year and prices haven't "bottomed out" yet, but 2012 will probably be (a little) better.
Falling for the fourth month in a row in December, home prices were down 4 percent nationally from a year ago, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, pushing all three S&P home price indexes—10-city, 20-city, and national—to their lowest levels since the housing crisis began in 2006. Nationally, home prices are still almost 34 percent off the 2006 peak.
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Falling Home Prices Aren't Helping Housing Costs
Tweet Share on Facebook February 28, 2012 CommentAlthough it seems phrases such as "affordable housing" or "historically low prices" are repeated ad nauseum when it comes to the housing market, freefalling home prices haven't done much to help many low- and moderate-income Americans cope with rising housing costs.
Nearly one in four working households spent more than half of its income on housing costs in 2010, according to a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Housing Policy. That's up slightly from about 22 percent in 2008.
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Pending Home Sales: Prelude to A Healthy Housing Market?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2012 Comment (1)Unseasonably warm weather in many parts of the country has given home sales a welcome boost this winter, a trend that will likely continue as the employment outlook improves and housing affordability remains at record levels, according to a new report.
Contracts to purchase previously owned homes surged to a near two-year high in January, according to the National Association of Realtors, reaching levels not seen since last January, when would-be home buyers scrambled to take advantage of the expiring home buyer tax credit. Contract signings are considered a leading indicator of home sales, which are finalized a month or so later.
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Survey: Bad Foreclosure Practices Still Rampant
Tweet Share on Facebook February 23, 2012 Comment (3)If you thought all of the bad press covering robo-signing and shady foreclosure practices would make big banks think twice about foreclosing on struggling homeowners, think again. According to a new survey, heightened media coverage and lawsuits galore have done little to change questionable practices in the mortgage finance industry.
Banks continue to routinely foreclose on scores of homeowners waiting for a loan modification or while they dispute fees or misapplied payments, according to a survey of consumer attorneys released by the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Consumer Law Center, and the National Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys.
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Home Sales Surge Gives Realtors Spring Fever
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2012 CommentHome sales in January surged to their highest level in almost two years, offering what experts hope is a preview of a healthy spring buying season.
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