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Current Market Conditions
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Housing: Where Are We Now
With house prices expected to slid and unemployment to rise
substantially further, this third
foreclosure wave will grow larger. If
house prices fall another 10% over the coming year,as Moodys Economy.com
currently forecasts, an estimated 18.6 million homeowners could be
underwater.
More to Come
Even if the economy stabilizes in 2010 as expected,
defaults will remain elevated long afterward. More large payment resets
are due to hit so-called option ARMs. Most of these mortgages were
designed on the 5-25 plan: five years of fixed payments and rates pegged
to Libor after that. All the option ARMs issued at the peak of the
housing bubble in 2005 and 2006 will thus reset for the first time in
2010 and 2011.
Case Shiller
Prices of
single-family homes fell 0.5 percent from February, which is the sixth
month-on-month drop, seems prices should have spiked from record low
mortgage rates. Unless the crises in Europe remains huge, mortgage rates
which are benefiting from a flight from the Euro, will rise sooner
trather than later. This is a window of low cost money for buyers and
refiers. Its a sale! And if this isnt causing a spike in prices then
inventory and psychology and persistently the villains. Now that the tax
incentives have ended, there seems to be no reason to expect prices to
rise in 2010.
Moodys
Foreclosures are going to have a fairly negative impact on
the housing market through the beginning of next year," she predicts,
adding that housing prices could drop another 5 percent between now and
the end of the year.
NAR
NAR says that total housing inventory soared 11.5 percent at the end
of April from a month earlier. This means that it would take 8.4 months
to sell all the properties, if sales continue at the current pace. High
inventories are likely to prevent big price gains over the next year or
two.
Long Term
the upside is in view.
The long-term
recovery seems to be in place: National prices were up 2.3 percent from
last year. Some cities are slowly working through their foreclosure
mess, San Diego and San Francisco, up 1.5 percent each reduced their
share of foreclosure inventory.
U.S. sales of new homes jumped nearly 15% in April to the highest
level since May 2008 as homebuyers rushed to meet the deadline to
qualify for tax credits. Sales jumped 14.8% in April to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 504,000, the Commerce Department
reported Wednesday. This follows an almost 30% gain in March. Everyone
expects these numbers to crash next month, the tax incentives are gone.
Mortgage Bankers Association already reports that reported that purchase
applications plummeted. But it does point to a lot of buyer appetite
out there.
Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for moodyseconomy.com
says that this is the time to buy,
even though prices may continue to drop. Now, Zandi says, is best time
to buy in a quarter-century, thanks to low mortgage rates, low prices
and a recovery in place.
REsourced
from
www.yourpropertypath.com
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