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Homeowner Vacancy Rate Rises
Tweet Share on Facebook February 3, 2009 CommentThe fourth-quarter homeowner vacancy rate increased by .1 percentage point to 2.9 percent from the same period of 2007, the government said Tuesday. Here's what economists at Goldman Sachs said about the figures in a report of their own.
Homeowner vacancy rates remain very elevated, which is quite bad news for the housing market…The increase puts the homeowner vacancy rate at the top end of the range they have been in since the end of 2006. At over a percentage point above the average vacancy rate before the housing bubble, this corresponds to an excess supply of over a million homes. Moreover, the slight increase from the third to the fourth quarter means that there is no sign that reduced homebuilding has started to work off that excess supply, a prerequisite for stabilization in the housing market. We expect the excess supply to continue to put downward pressure on house prices over 2009.
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Falling Home Prices Push Pending Sales Higher
Tweet Share on Facebook February 3, 2009 Comment (1)Low mortgage rates and cheaper home prices--driven downwards by mounting foreclosures--triggered an unexpected increase in December pending home sales, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.
From NAR:
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in December, rose 6.3 percent to 87.7 from an upwardly revised reading of 82.5 in November, and is 2.1 percent higher than December 2007 when it was 85.9.
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$6.1 Trillion in Home Values Go Poof in Housing Bust
Tweet Share on Facebook February 3, 2009 Comment (4)Zillow is out with its fourth-quarter Real Estate Market Reports. Among the most significant findings:
Home values in the United States fell for the eighth consecutive quarter, declining 11.6 percent during 2008 to a Zillow Home Value Index of $192,119…
The declines mean that U.S. homeowners lost a cumulative $3.3 trillion in home values during 2008, with much of that loss coming in the fourth quarter. Homeowners lost $1.4 trillion during the fourth quarter alone; more than the $1.3 trillion lost during all of 2007. Since the housing market's peak in 2006, $6.1 trillion in home values have been lost.
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Banks Tighten Mortgage Lending Standards
Tweet Share on Facebook February 2, 2009 Comment (12)In the face of mounting job losses and higher delinquencies, a "substantial" portion of banks tightened their lending standards for mortgages over the past three months, the Federal Reserve said Monday in its most-recent Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey.
Residential real estate lending. Smaller, though still substantial, fractions of domestic respondents reported having tightened lending standards on prime and nontraditional residential mortgages in the January survey. About 45 percent of domestic respondents indicated that they had tightened their lending standards on prime mortgages over the past three months, and almost 50 percent of the 25 banks that originated nontraditional residential mortgage loans over the survey period reported having tightened their lending standards on such loans.
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Sen. Chris Dodd to Refinance Countrywide VIP Loans
Tweet Share on Facebook February 2, 2009 Comment (5)Well, with rates this low, it certainly is a good time to refinance….
From The Associated Press:
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd says he'll refinance two mortgages that he received through a VIP program from Countrywide Financial Corp.
Dodd told reporters Monday that the mortgages for his homes in Washington and East Haddam, Conn., will be refinanced with a different company.
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Barney Frank: Obama's TARP to Include Lending Push
Tweet Share on Facebook February 2, 2009 Comment (8)Banks that have received government bailout funds have been slammed for not using much of the cash to make loans. But during an appearance yesterday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, suggested that the new administration's financial bailout plan will include efforts to increase lending.
FRANK: …it is a mistake to assume that the Obama administration hasn't learned from the mistakes of the Bush administration. I believe they're going to do it very differently.
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Congresswoman to Owners Facing Foreclosure: Stay in Your Home
Tweet Share on Facebook February 2, 2009 Comment (28)In an unconventional approach to tackling the housing crisis, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a democrat from Ohio, is reportedly telling troubled homeowners to exercise squatter's rights in the hopes of keeping their properties.
From the Toledo Blade:
"I'm saying to them possession is 99 percent of the law; you stay in your house," Miss Kaptur said yesterday, continuing a crusade she started several weeks ago in Congress and CNN picked up Thursday night...
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