Recently In The News
| Housing Inventory Declines | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - by James R. Hagerty | November 5, 2009 |
| Good news for sellers. More indication that prices have already bottomed out / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: The supply of homes available for sale in 27 major metropolitan areas at the end of October was down 2.8% from a month earlier... Inventories typically increase in October. On a national basis over the past 25 years, they have grown about 1% on average in October from September, according to Zelman & Associates, a research firm. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Home Buyer Credit Gets New Life | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - by Corey Boles & John D. McKinnon | October 29, 2009 |
| If this passes, it's good news for people who are NOT first-time buyers, and will be retroactive for several years / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: The agreement would extend the existing credit for first-time home buyers, worth up to $8,000, while offering a new credit of up to $6,500 for some existing homeowners, Senate aides said. The reduced credit would be available to all home buyers who have been in their current residence for a consecutive five-year period in the past eight years. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Fewer McMansions on the Horizon Builders Have Little Incentive to Create More McMansions and Hardly Anyone is Buying. There are Deals Out There, But You Better Act Fast. |
|
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - by June Fletcher | October 26, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, notes that "homes are as affordable as they've ever been," based on household income. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Big Rebound in Existing-Home Sales Shows First-Time Buyer Momentum | |
| NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS Article - by Walter Molony | October 23, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: “Our read is that housing overshot on the downside because homes are selling for less than replacement construction costs in much of the country, and the home price-to-income ratio has fallen below the historical average,” McMillan said. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Mortgage Rates Fall Again | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - Washington | October 9, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Mortgage rates fell this week, with the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages retreating deeper below 5% and several others reaching lows, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Loan-Modification Plan Hits Target | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - By Ruth Simon and Corey Boles | October 9, 2009 |
| Possible extension of $8,000 tax credit to ALL buyers! That would be great news, but we'll have to wait and see what happens / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: On the first-time home-buyer tax credit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said some consideration was being given to extending the credit to all buyers purchasing a principal residence, but that no decisions had been made. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Mixed Data Reflect Fragility of Economic Recovery | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - By SARA MURRAY | September 30, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: "While housing is showing some signs of having reached a bottom, we need to recognize that it is a sector still on life support,"..."The market for housing will not become truly robust until market forces replace the prostheses of government support." Read Entire Article
|
|
| Home sales fall after 4 months of increases | |
| ASSOCIATED PRESS Article - by ALAN ZIBEL | September 24, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Most economists, however, called the drop temporary and said they expected sales to strengthen later this fall. "It doesn't change the underlying trend of improvement," said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Mortgage Rate Nearer to 5% | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article - WASHINGTON | September 18, 2009 |
| With low rates, possible tax credit, low prices... for buyers it is time to get off the fence before it's too late / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: Freddie economist Frank Nothaft said the results, which showed the third consecutive week of declines in fixed mortgage rates, suggest this year may post a record annual low for the survey, which began in 1971. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Keller Williams Receives Nod as the Highest Ranked in Customer Satisfaction | |
| KELLER WILLIAMS Press Release | September 2, 2009 |
| Why is Keller Williams International growing while others are closing offices? / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Home Buyer/Seller StudySM, Keller Williams Realty, Inc., the third largest real estate company in North America, received the highest overall satisfaction ratings from home buyers among the largest full-service real estate firms for the second year in a row. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Yes, the Housing Market Has Rarely Looked Better | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article by JAMES B. STEWART | September 1, 2009 |
| This is a MUST READ article for buyers on the fence / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: ...real-estate values increased this past quarter over the first quarter of 2009, the first quarter-on-quarter increase in three years... In short, the data suggest that real-estate prices hit a bottom some time during the second quarter, and have now begun to rise. There's no way to be certain that this marks the end of the long, painful correction that followed the real-estate bubble, but clearly prices are no longer in free-fall. Read Entire Article
|
|
| APR Is Not the Best Gauge of Mortgage Costs | |
| WASHINGTON POST Article by JACK GUTTENTAG | August 29, 2009 |
| Good article for borrowers considering buying down with points / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: Because of the built-in assumption that the borrower will have the loan for the full term, the APR is also useless to borrowers assessing the cost of adjustable-rate mortgages. If the borrower expects to be out of the house before the initial rate period is over, an APR calculated over the full term may be misleading. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Housing Lifts Recovery Hopes Stocks Soar on 7.2% Spurt in Home Resales; Bernanke Optimistic but Foreclosures Loom |
|
|
WALL STREET JOURNAL Article by JAMES R. HAGERTY and NICK TIMIRAOS
|
August 22, 2009 |
| Philadelphia Region named as one of the "Strongest Performers" / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: The monthly increase was the largest since 1999, when the NAR began collecting data for all types of homes -- its measure includes condominiums and cooperative apartments. It marked the fourth monthly rise in a row. Sales also were up 5% from July 2008, showing the first gain from the year-earlier level since November 2005. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Housing Data Show Slowly Firming Market | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article by SARA MURRAY | August 19, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Construction of single-family homes, though, rose 1.7%, to 490,000, in July after climbing 17.8% in June. Single-family permits, a sign of future construction, rose 5.8%. The rise in construction marked the fifth consecutive monthly gain, showing once again that the housing market is firming up, albeit at a slow pace. Read Entire Article
|
|
| Toll Says Home Buyers Tiptoe Back | |
| WALL STREET JOURNAL Article by DAWN WOTAPKA and JAMES R. HAGERTY | August 13, 2009 |
| This article is good news for the ailing Luxury Market / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: Lower prices, mortgage-rate discounts and other incentives for home buyers yielded much-stronger-than-expected orders for Toll Brothers Inc. in its most recent quarter. "Fence-sitters are looking for reasons to jump in on the side of buying," said the upscale-home builder's chief executive, Robert Toll. He added that "price is no longer the overwhelmingly dominant factor." Read Entire Article
|
|
| 2nd Quarter Existing-Home Sales Rise in Most States, Helped by Affordable Metro Prices | |
| NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS Article by WALTER MOLONY | August 12, 2009 |
| New Jersey is mentioned in this article as one of the states having "double-digit gains" / Jeff | |
|
Excerpt: Existing-home sales in the second quarter showed healthy gains from the first quarter in the vast majority of states, and price declines have increased affordability in most metro areas, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Realtors®... Thirty-nine states experienced sales increases from the first quarter, and nine states were higher than a year ago; the District of Columbia showed both quarterly and annual rises. Read Entire Article |
|
| Uptrend Continues in Pending Home Sales | |
| NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS Article by WILLIAMS MOLONY | August 4, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Pending home sales are up for the fifth consecutive month, the first time in six years for such a streak, according to the National Association of Realtors®. The Pending Home Sales Index,1 a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in June, rose 3.6 percent to 94.6 from an upwardly revised reading of 91.3 in May, and is 6.7 percent above June 2008 when it was 88.7. The last time there were five consecutive monthly gains was in July 2003. Read Entire Article
|
|
| AP Analysis: Foreclosures Stabilize in Key States | |
| ASSOCIATED PRESS Article by MIKE SCHNEIDER and CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Writers | August 3, 2009 |
|
Excerpt: Other figures from the past two weeks suggest that the housing market is recovering in many areas. Nationally, seasonally adjusted home resales in June were up 9 percent from January. New-home sales surged 17 percent in the same period. Construction is up nearly 20 percent since the year began. And prices rose in May for the first time since June 2006. Read Entire Article |
|
