The economy may still be in recovery stages but recent reports show that momentum may regained really, really soon. Take for example the report on this week’s U.S. mortgage rates. With mortgage rates being at its lowest in the last 40 years, real-estate watchers are crossing their fingers that the market will pick up soon and banks will start helping more people with house purchases.
In a seven-day period that ended Thursday, numbers show that the 30-year mortgage rate is at its lowest ever since Freddie Mac tracked the said figures in 1971. The average 30-year mortgage rate tumbled from 4.36% to 4.32% last week. The number is also lower by 5.08% from 2009.
Good things in the housing market are already stemming from the depreciating rates. The low mortgage rates may have resulted to the unexpected growth in July pending sales – although the extension of tax credit for homebuyers may as easily have caused this as well.
The California Board of Equalization (CBE) revealed on Thursday that the state’s property market again suffered retreats this year as overall value declined by 1.8 percent to $4.4 trillion, coming from the loss of 2.4 percent in 2009.
Analysts said that the latest plunge marked the Golden State’s property slump for two consecutive years and also the second time that back-to-back real estate dips had occurred in the area since the Great Depression in 1933.
The CBE report also showed that up to 48 counties from the state’s total of 58 experienced total losses while nine managed to minimize the decline to only five percent, with the oil-rich Kern and tourist attraction San Francisco offering some glimmer of hopes by both posting property tax improvements of more than two percent.
The index measuring pending home sales rose 5.2 percent in July compared to June, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
The news was deemed to be positive by investors last Friday. But the trade organization tempered the optimism, saying that more affordable homes can help sales, but without federal tax credit help, sales are destined to be slow. “Home sales will remain soft in the months ahead, but improved affordability conditions should help with a recovery,” Yun said in a NAR statement.
The news helped stocks of home builders gain last Friday. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders exchange-traded-fund, which measures the performance of companies in the home building sector, gained 2.7 percent.
Much of the country is suffering from the cancellation of the federal home buyer tax credit, with sales falling and prices plummeting. The Grand Strand area, though, are not suffering as bad a fate as the big metropolitan areas. Though sales and prices are also wavering in the said area, the drop is not as drastic as others.
The Grand Strand area, however, is not affected by the same things as typical real estate areas. The market it attracts includes second-home buyers and investors. So when the tax credit was introduced, it did not really create much of a boost in home sales for the area. This is also the reason there’s not much of a dent in the July sales for Grand Strand.
In the Myrtle Beach area, single family home sales in July this year are down by 7% vis-a-vis July 2009; condos sales, on the other hand, are down by 4%. Exit Grand Strand Real Estate Realtor Jerry Pinkas says this is but a normal thing for them and that they are not worried that further drop will occur because of the tax credit cancellation. The area’s Realtors, after all, have the beach to keep attracting buyers.
Home sales in central Michigan slowed dramatically in July, echoing the experience of buyers and sellers across the country.
This July was the slowest July of the decade in the mid-Michigan home market, according to an analysis of data released by a trade group.
A total of 74 homes changed hands in July in transactions handled by members of the Central Michigan Association of Realtors. That group handles real estate deals mainly in Isabella and Gratiot counties.
That’s well below the five-year average July rate of 85. The previous slowest July was in 2008, when 79 properties changed hands.
Members of the Clare-Gladwin Board of Realtors sold just 49 homes during the month, also making it the slowest July of the decade for that area. The five-year average for July is 62 sales, and the previous slowest July was in 2009, when 54 properties changed hands.
The central Michigan experience followed a trend nationally. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously occupied homes in the United States fell 27 percent in July, the weakest showing in 15 years.
Pending home sales were up 33.7 percent in Miami-Dade County in August compared to the same month last year, according to data released Thursday by Miami Realtors.
Pending sales — signed contracts that have not yet closed — were up to 10,119 last month, compared to 7,570 in August of last year in Miami-Dade County. Month-over-month, pending sales were up 0.6 percent.
For condos, 5,759 pending sales represented a 49.7 percent increase over the same month last year, and a decrease of 0.7 percent for the month.
For single-family homes, last month’s 4,360 signed contracts represented an increase of 17.1 percent compared to last August.
Sales of new homes declined unexpectedly in July, the government said on Wednesday in the second report this week that showed that the housing sector stalled last month.
The Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes in July fell 12.4 percent from June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units. That was the lowest level in July since the government began keeping track in 1963
July sales of new homes were 32.4 percent below sales for July 2009. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales to be flat in July from June. June sales were revised down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000, from 330,000, after May fell to an annual rate of 267,000.
The report also said the median sales price was $204,000 in July, down 6 percent from June and 4.8 percent from July 2009. The average sales price was $235,300 in July, down 3.1 percent from June.
Actually, when you put the numbers under a microscope, single-family home prices — on a price-per-square-foot basis — seem to have stabilized since July 2009 after a long, dizzying descent. (The tax notice you got in the mail recently probably indicates otherwise, but it reflects activity from the first half of 2009, when prices were still in free-fall, and condo prices, which are still in decline).
Since July 2009, median home sale prices have flattened or are even up a little, according to some measures. That’s an indication that people like the Fabricios are inching back into the market, at least those lucky enough to have the cash or financing to make a purchase.
“We’re selling more homes than we sold in the last five years,” said Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realty. “2010 is going to be the best year in our industry since 2005.”
There are a variety of reasons: Interest rates are at historic lows, choices are abundant (thanks to the many distressed properties glutting the market), and if the past 12 month are any indication, single-family home prices may have bottomed out.
Finally, there’s this: for $250,000, you can buy a heck of a house.
King County home sales fell in August for the second straight month, providing more evidence — if anyone still needs it — that the market has cooled since popular tax credits ended.
The median price, however, rose slightly.
Buyers closed on 1,313 houses last month, 18 percent fewer than August 2009, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) reported Friday.
It was the second straight monthly year-over-year decline after 13 months of gains. The drop coincided with expiration of federal tax credits, aimed mostly at first-time buyers, that were enacted in 2009 to boost a sagging housing market.
With some exceptions, the last of the sales that qualified for the credits of up to $8,000 closed in May and June. Now the market is sagging again.
Sales of existing single-family homes dropped to their lowest levels since 1995, according a recent report from the National Association of Realtors.
The NAR said that July’s existing-home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units, which was a 27.2 percent decline from June’s figure. They are also down 25.5 percent from numbers posted during the same time in 2009.
Sales of single-family homes make up the bulk of the NAR’s statistic. When considering other types of units – including townhomes, co-ops and condominiums – transactions are down to the lowest levels seen since the organization began cumulative tracking in 1999.