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Archive: The market
Is Washington turning into a seller's market?
The inventory of homes listed for sale on the local multiple listing service, Metropolitan Regional Information Services, the cupboard is pretty bare in some spots. At the current sales pace, Manassas Park City has just 1.3 months' worth of listings. Manassas City, just 1.4 months. Falls Church City, 2.1 months; and Fairfax County just 2.7 months. Arlington County has 3.9 months. The rule of thumb says 6 months' inventory marks a balanced market--favoring neither sellers nor buyers.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 13, 2009; 12:48 PM ET | Comments (14)
Washington-area home prices down 2.5% from last year
The median home price for homes sold in the Washington, D.C., area, a vast Census territory that stretches from the Chesapeake bay to West Virginia, fell 2.5 percent during the July-September quarter compared to a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The price decline was greater for Washington-area condos. At a median of $244,300, prices were down 7.1 percent compared to a year ago, or 0.2 percent compared to the second quarter of this year.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 10, 2009; 12:45 PM ET | Comments (12)
Remodelers: "It will die if you don't take care of it."
Remodeling is not dead--but it's a much more modest endeavor these days, when more homeowners are paying the tab out of their savings instead of a cheap and easy home equity loan, according to remodelers. Officials of Case Design/Remodeling, which is based in the Washington area, had some interesting things to say about remodeling in Nation's Building News, an online publication of the National Association of Home Builders. Their average project now costs about $100,000, half of what was typical in 2007, said Mark Richardson, Case co-chairman. And they're focusing much of their pitch to homeowners on the need to keep up their properties, pointing out maintenance issues that ought to be taken care of. "It will die if you don't take care of it," is Case's message.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 10, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Washington home sales and The Weekend Poll
How much did the $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit boost local home sales? By about 1,900 deals that otherwise would not have occurred, according to local real estate analysts Delta Associates. The area's high prices and high number of transients makes our market less influenced by first-timers than most other parts of the country, Delta analysts say in a report released with Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the local multiple listing service.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 6, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Fannie Mae to allow some troubled owners to rent back
Fannie mae announced a new program Thursday that will allow some homeowners facing foreclosure to hand the deed back to their lender but remain in the home as a renter. The idea behind their new "Deed for Lease Program" is that allowing rent-backs will minimize family displacement and stanch the deterioration of neighborhoods plagued by vacant foreclosures, according to Fannie's announcement.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 5, 2009; 02:39 PM ET | Comments (3)
Now you can get closed-sale prices as fast as a real estate agent
Starting this morning, Redfin is posting closed-sale prices and photographs for all homes on the multiple listing services serving the Washington area (and about a dozen other metro areas) as soon as the listing broker marks the sale as final.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Refinancers save $3 billion in a year
People who refinanced during the July-September quarter cut their interest rate by an average of 1.1 percentage point, and they stand to save $3 billion, all together, over the first 12 months of their new loan, according to Freddie Mac. Another telling statistic: The median appreciation of the refinanced property was 0 percent during the third quarter. Zero.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 3, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
First-time buyer credit and The Weekend Poll
There's some movement on Capitol Hill toward extending the first-time buyer's tax credit. As reported by the Post's Dina Elboghdady, there is consensus in favor of a limited extension of the $8,000 tax credit. The latest version said to be favored in the Senate: Extended to home sales that go under contract by April 30 and close by June 30. A new, $6,500 tax credit would be available for buyers who have owned during five of the eight years prior to the purchase.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 30, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Washington area is short 40,000 homes affordable to average earners
We now have a shortage of about 40,000 for-sale homes within a 30- 45-minute commute of those employment hubs that are affordable to people earning these incomes, according to the report. They predict the shortage of affordable for-sale homes will grow by 5,000 units per year between 2010 and 2030. And recent declines in area home prices haven’t helped much, they say, because housing close to those employment hubs took less of a hit than homes farther out in the suburbs.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 29, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (16)
Get Free Alerts if Someone Messes With Your Deed
First American CoreLogic's ePropertyWatch service allows users to set up a password-protected account and receive e-mail updates reporting recent home sales, foreclosures and, most important, the registration of any changes to public records reflecting your ownership of the home. Such changes could include liens or deed transfers filed without you knowing about it.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 15, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
A Flood of Solar Events and The Weekend Poll
The 19th Annual Metro Washington, D.C., Tour of Solar Homes and Buildings is scheduled for this weekend, Oct. 3-5. And the National Mall is in the process of turning into one solar-powered housing development.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 2, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
It's Official: We're Hot and Hip
Washington, D.C., ties with Seattle to lead the Wall Street Journal's new list of 10 cities that will be "the hottest, hippest destinations for highly mobile, educated workers in their twenties when the economy gets going again."
By Elizabeth Razzi | September 30, 2009; 09:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Builder KB Home Starting Up Again in Washington Area
Signs of life in the Washington-area real estate market have caught the attention of at least one big builder. Los-Angeles based KB Home announced this morning that it would resume building in the Mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland and Virginia. The company pulled out of the market in April, 2008.
By Elizabeth Razzi | September 16, 2009; 10:04 AM ET | Comments (1)
What's the Line on Extending the $8,000 Tax Credit?
Odds are improving that Congress will extend the first-time-home-buyer tax credit beyond the Nov. 30 deadline as it pushes to revive the housing market, said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Washington Research Group, a unit of Concept Capital. There’s a 60 percent chance that lawmakers will keep the tax credit intact especially since policymakers from both parties have voiced their support, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents foreclosure-plagued Nevada, Seiberg said. But fiscally conservative lawmakers may rally against it in part because it could cost at least $10 billion to extend the tax credit through Sept. 30, 2010, Seiberg said.
By Elizabeth Razzi | September 15, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (8)
Appraisers Say 'Don't Blame Us'
I had a cup of coffee the other morning with someone at the heart of the appraisal fuss that has prevailed this summer. And he's sick of his industry getting blamed for low appraisals that kill deals. "We are really tired of getting slammed," he said. "Show me the data," said Don Blanchard, chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel for Lender Processing Services, which owns LSI, one of the nation's biggest appraisal management companies.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 26, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Chat Plus: Pay Off the Second Mortgage or Save the Cash?
Here's a question remaining from last week's Real Estate live chat: Northern Virginia: We bought our home in 2006 for $775,000. While we are in good standing with our mortgage, we are "underwater." (Homes of similar age/size/condition in our area are currently selling for about $600,000-$650,000). We want to relocate out of the area but do not have the funds to makeup the difference. We assume it will take three to five years for us to break even, maybe more. We determined that in three years, we could pay down our second mortgage enough to account for the current drop in value. Do you think this is our best option to accelerate our ability to move?
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 25, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Price Increases Coming in Foreclosure Hot Spots?
Another report based on Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data says the supply of for-sale homes in the Washington area fell in July, to 5.3 months' worth. "That level of supply is considered at or below equilibrium," according to the folks at Metrostudy, a consultant hired by MRIS, the local multiple listings service. And because supply is below the six-month threshold that marks a balanced market, they expected prices to rise soon. However, not everyone agrees.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 12, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (14)
Short Sale Plan Coming, and The Weekend Poll
The federal government may try to nudge lenders to approve more short sales soon. But will the feds really be able to convince lenders to clear the path for more of these deals? Here's an interesting snippet from the online chat held Thursday with the Post's Renae Merle and Michael S. Barr, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial institutions.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 7, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Choosing Bankruptcy to Avoid Foreclosure
Even though you cannot get rid of your mortgage payments through bankruptcy, about one in five people who went through mandatory pre-bankruptcy credit counseling said they were doing so to avoid losing their homes to foreclosure, according to Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Greater Atlanta. That organization provides counseling throughout the United States.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 6, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Housing Demand in Area Outpacing Supply
The inventory of homes listed for sale in the Washington metro area dropped to just 5.1 months' worth in June, according to a report from Delta Associates, a real estate consulting firm, and Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the local multiple listings service. That's an important milestone for the local housing market. Analysts usually cite a six-month supply as normal for a balanced market. Five months' supply takes us out of a buyer's market and toward one that favors sellers.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (10)
Geography of Distress
I want to direct you to a valuable package of work produced by a team of writers and editors at the Post. They've produced an interactive map of residential foreclosures by Zip code from January 2007 to June 2009 for the Washington metro area. Hardest hit, they say, is Woodbridge's 2011 Zip code, which had 3,041 homes lost.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 30, 2009; 03:15 PM ET | Comments (2)
More Signs That Home Prices are Steadying
For the first time since the summer of 2006, the analysts at S&P/Case-Shiller have detected price increases from April to May in 17 of the 20 metro areas they follow.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 28, 2009; 11:26 AM ET | Comments (1)
Chat Plus: This is What Change Looks Like
Burke, Va.: What's really going on out there with prices? I know a few people in NoVA who are looking at single family homes in the $400k range who have been outbid on several properties. And since hearing these stories, I have been keeping an eye on Zillow, and that website has reported a value increase of almost $50k in my home over the last six weeks. Now, those Zillow numbers seem pretty fishy, but it is the trend that I find intriguing. What's going on here?
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 27, 2009; 09:04 AM ET | Comments (1)
Home Sales Increase and The Weekend Poll
The best news coming out of the National Association of Realtors' monthly home sales report? The inventory of listings nationwide in June was down about 15 percent from a year earlier. The median price also happened to be down about 15 percent over the same period. Recovery can't happen until inventories are whittled down to more normal levels--closer to six months' supply vs. the 9.4-months' supply the nation has now, so this is a promising development.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 24, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Appraisal Quality Getting More Attention
Will it appraise? Low-quality appraisals done by appraisers parachuting in from a different market are among the top complaints this summer. Freddie Mac recently issued a reminder to lenders that it's their responsibility to make sure that appraisals are performed by people who are well-qualified and familiar with the local market.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 16, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
Signs of Stabilizing Prices, and the Weekend Poll
Trulia reports today that there are signs that prices in the Washington area are starting to stabilize. The metro area is among those that have had a significant decline in the number of for-sale homes with price reductions over the past month. The same is true for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas and Baltimore. At the beginning of July, 23 percent of homes on the market in the Washington area have had at least one price reduction, averaging 8 percent. On June 1 according to Trulia, 30 percent of homes on the market had a price reduction, averaging 10 percent.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 10, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
Mortgage Fraud Rising in the Washington Area
Maryland is on the FBI's top ten list for states with the most mortgage fraud, and the District is among jurisdictions "newly identified as having significant mortgage fraud problems," according to the bureau's 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report, which was just released. Nationwide, the number of mortgage fraud suspicious-activity reports referred to law enforcement increased 36 percent over 2007, the report says. And the government's economic stimulus programs could fuel further increases, according to the FBI.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 9, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Google Buffs Up Its Real Estate Listings
When Google does anything, you have to pay attention. Slowly, the internet search behemoth is making its home-sale listings easier to use. You'll find their listings on Google Maps, where you can simply enter a search phrase such as "Homes For Sale Silver Spring, Md." and call up a map with listings highlighted.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 8, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
What Metro Adds to Home Values
My first post-accident Metro ride was on Wednesday, two days after last week's horrible crash. As the train s-l-o-w-l-y pulled into the station, I felt sorry for the driver, who was practically alone in the front car. And then I joined the crowd boarding at the middle of the train. It seemed the logical choice, at least until investigators figure out what caused one train to crash into the back of another--and how to keep it from happening again. Now I'm wondering what would happen if our subway system, which for a long time was so clean and safe that tourists saw it as a fun component of any trip to the Nation's Capital, were to develop a reputation as unsafe. Proximity to a Metro station adds real value to homes, especially if they're within walking distance.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 29, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Appraisers Blamed for Killing a Market Recovery
There's a Catch-22 that always arises when home prices start to increase near the end of a recession. Even though buyers are willing to pay more, appraisals often come in lower than the agreed-upon price because they're based on comparable sales from three-to-six months earlier, when prices were bottoming. Real estate agents and mortgage brokers say it's happening now, and that it's disrupting sales.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 25, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (11)
D.C. Area Makes All the Best Lists
Brace yourself for more cars moving vans on Washington-area roads: Two national magazines, Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Forbes, have us on their "Best of" lists.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 23, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Younger Home Buyers Will Be Less Wealthy
The Echo Boomers will probably have less money to spend on housing--and other needs--than their predecessors. "The depth of the downturn may, for the first time in at least 40 years, reduce the real median household incomes of each 10-year [age group] relative to its predecessor by 2010," says the report. That new decade happens to start in only seven little months.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 22, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
What Northern Virginia Needs Now is New Homes?
What makes Washington different from the rest of the country? (Insert your own wiseguy remark here.) According to Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, it's that our unemployment woes are much lighter than elsewhere, and --take a deep breath--we need to start building homes again.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 16, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Pessimists vs. Optimists and The Weekend Poll
I haven't yet figured out what's really behind the bloggists and commenters who seem to fervently hope for an even more drastic plunge in home prices. Jawboning the market down doesn't seem to have much purpose, and I don't see the fun in all that cynicism. Conversely, trying to cheerlead the market back to health doesn't work very well, either. In Saturday's Real Estate Section, I have a story about the "Surround Sound" campaign the National Association of Realtors has pursued over the past 16 months, which tries to counter the gloomy economic news that prevailed in the press.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 12, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (15)
Buyers and Sellers at a Standoff?
interviewed Donna Evers, president of the Evers & Co. brokerage in the District yesterday for a story coming up this weekend, and she had an interesting observation that didn't quite fit into the story, but I thought Local Addressers might find interesting. She said she's seeing more nervousness now among buyers and sellers. Realistically priced homes are drawing multiple offers, upsetting people's notions that it's one big buyer's market out there. "It's almost equal nervousness, and there are some standoffs on negotiations," she said. "Both sides feel like they've got some strength."
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 11, 2009; 09:08 AM ET | Comments (3)
Will the Busy Real Estate Market Last?
Yesterday I had a quick cup of coffee with Glenn Kelman, president and CEO of Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, and Karen Krupsaw, the company's manager of the DC-area market. And while they said business is way, way up this spring ("our best May and June ever," according to Kelman) he expressed some concern about whether it would stay that way going into fall.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 3, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
What If There Weren't All Those Foreclosures?
Distressed home-sales--foreclosures and short sales--magnified the price decline in California since 2006 by about 5.4 percentage points, according to a research paper from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The study attempts to quantify the effect of distressed home sales on home price measures such as FHFA's House Price Index.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 28, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (5)
Recovery Could Bring a Flood of Listings
If the real estate market showed real signs of coming back to life, would you put your home up for sale? According to a new survey released by the Zillow realty web site, about 32 percent of homeowners said they would be at least somewhat likely to do so. And Zillow officials said if there really is that much pent-up supply out there, it could seriously weigh down the eventual housing recovery.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 14, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Beware Dated Housing Stats
"Anyone here from Northern Virginia?" asked Tom Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic & Consulting in Vienna. He was one of the panelists in that marathon economic summit meeting that Realtors held at the Marriott Wardman Park yesterday. "Northern Virginia is actually starting to bottom," he said. He warned participants that all the home-price indexes rely on dated information.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 13, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Market Up, or Down, Or?
Check back through the day for updates filed from the National Association of Realtors' daylong economic summit. We're in the Marriott Wardman Park's giant ballroom, and through the day we'll hear from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Havard's Eric Belsky and Martin Feldstein, the Wharton School's Susan Wachter, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Carnegie Mellon University's Allan Meltzer and others, roughly in that order.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 12, 2009; 09:18 AM ET | Comments (3)
Are Matchmaking Sites the Future?
I just spent a while playing around with a new realty web site, Findbuyers.com, launched by Washington-area real estate agent Eldad Moraru. It's a free matchmaking site that invites buyers to enter the specifics about the type of home they seek (the usual condo/house/townhouse, bedrooms/baths and price and location questions). Buyers can then be matched with homes that meet their criteria, and buyer and seller can communicate anonymously from there. I can't say the site wowed me with its usefulness. But I am starting to wonder seriously if non-brokerage, matchmaking sites like Findbuyers and Zillow might be the template for the future.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 11, 2009; 04:54 PM ET | Comments (2)
Realty Exec Wants More Housing Incentives
The Century 21 real estate company is asking Congress for more help boosting the real estate market. Tom Kunz, Century 21's president and CEO, stopped by the Post Thursday morning. He and some of the company's franchisees had just made the rounds on Capitol Hill, asking lawmakers to boost the current (and temporary) $8,000 first-time-buyer tax credit to $15,000--and to make it available to anyone buying their principal home. He also thinks government should push 30-year fixed mortgage rates down to 4-4.5 percent for about a year.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 8, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Mortgage Crisis Show, Tonight on WAMU and WHUT
I'm looking forward to the questions that will come up this evening during a panel discussion I have been invited to join at Howard University. It's part of their week-long special on the mortgage crisis and is being led by WAMU radio host Kojo Nnamdi. The broadcast will be live on Howard University Television, WHUT,and WAMU 88.5. at 8 p.m.
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 30, 2009; 02:40 PM ET | Comments (0)
Take a Spin with Frank and Take the Poll
Have you seen the "WheelEstateCam" that Arlington real estate broker Frank Borges LLosa posts on his blog and You Tube? LLosa is first-rate at this web thing, having named his brokerage FranklyRealty.com and all. A while back he fastened a web camera directly onto his steering wheel, and regularly talks real estate as he tools around town.
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 24, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Searching for Homes With Price Cuts
Trulia is launching a new search filter to allow shoppers to search only for homes that have had a price reduction. You have to wonder if sellers will (or ought to) build in a price reduction right at the start of the listing. Are buyers getting too focused on the "price reduced" selling point? Are homes becoming like rug shops, with their perpetual sales and "store-closing prices?"
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 23, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Vacation Homes And the Weekend Poll
I've been thinking about second homes for years now, and there have always been two things keeping me from jumping on one. First, of course is the money. But a close second is traffic.
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 17, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Long & Foster Adds Job-Loss Protection
Long & Foster Realtors is trying to coax the employed-but-worried into the market with a new job-loss protection program. Agents throughout the company are just getting training on the new "Buy Confident" program, which will be rolled out shortly through all of Long & Foster's offices in the mid-Atlantic. Some new-home builders have started offering such protection on their sales, but it's rare for the coverage to be offered on resales marketed through a giant brokerage such as Long & Foster.
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 16, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
Complete this Sentence Game, Realtor Edition
Today's question is not whether it's a good time to buy a home. Real estate agents spout the line so consistently, it's become kinda funny. Instead we have little game of Complete this Sentence: It's a great time to buy a home because...........
By Elizabeth Razzi | April 13, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
What's Your American Dream?
An interesting question came up during a recent taping of NPR's "On Point" radio program that I thought I would share here. I was a guest along with Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and financial management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and June Fletcher, a real estate columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Among other things we talked about "The American Dream," and whether owning a home is a key part of it. Despite the losses of the past few years, I still believe that homes will once again become assets that significantly add to households' wealth. But that wealth will accumulate slowly, over decades, not at a double-digit annual rate like we saw (mirage though it was) during the boom. But is owning a home the American Dream? I said I thought that is more of a marketing concept pushed by the real estate industry,...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 27, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Rent or Buy?
I've been hearing contradictory complaints from people in our bi-weekly Real Estate Live online chats. In roughly equal numbers, people ask why rents aren't going down given the surplus of unsold homes, while others complain that sale prices are too high compared with rents. So which is it? I did a little spot check on the market, searching for houses advertised for rent on WashingtonPost.com and then looking up asking prices for similar houses listed for sale. From this little experiment, it looks like rent isn't much of a bargain, at least in the close-in suburbs. In the Belle View section of Fairfax County, just south of Alexandria, I found a nice four-bedroom, two-bath rental house with an updated kitchen for $2,495 a month. Searching houses listed for sale on the multiple listing service, I found a similar place, also with four bedrooms and two baths, just half a...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 26, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Layoff Worries vs. Buyer Incentives
Worries about layoffs and their tendency to drastically interfere with one's ability to make a monthly mortgage payment don't seem to be burdening first-time buyers as much as they weigh upon existing homeowners. About 18 percent of people who consider themselves first-time home buyers said they plan to make a purchase this year so they can take advantage of the new $8,000 tax credit, according to an early-March survey commissioned by Move Inc., the company that operates a listings Web site for the National Association of Realtors. Among all surveyed, first-timers and repeat customers alike, 5.8 percent said they planned to buy within one year; and another 13 percent said they planned to buy in the next two years. The survey revealed a world of worry, though, among current owners. A recent job loss in the household is causing 27 percent to fear they may default on their loan. Another...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 24, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Nudge Turns to Shove
This was the week when federal officials showed just how serious they are about stirring up the housing market. If an $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers wasn't enough to draw buyers off the sidelines, the Federal Reserve announced it would throw another trillion (plus a couple billion) more dollars into the bond markets to drive interest rates even lower. Lenders started quoting 30-year mortgage rates around 4.5 percent almost immediately. If this doesn't shoot some adrenaline into the market, it's hard to imagine what will. Also this week, the feds unveiled a handy Web site to help consumers find their way toward a government-assisted refinance, a loan modification or a credit counseling session. It's a good clearinghouse of calculators, interactive worksheets and links. (You may also want to try the interactive guide to the homeowners bailout plan put together by my colleague Renae Merle, which has better news for...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 20, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
More New Homes?
My favorite, most reliable economic indicator may be the overheard conversation. People aren't spinning you when they're chatting with a friend who just happens to be within my earshot. Despite all the layoff announcements recently, I am definitely hearing more chatter about home buying, mostly from (still-employed) first-timers who stand to benefit from the new $8,000 tax credit. So, I was disheartened to hear that builders started work on 22 percent more homes in February than in the month before. Were builders going to pounce on the first faint glimmer of buyer activity and start building again? I was reassured, though, to learn that most of the increase came from construction of new apartments, and that these numbers tend to jump around a lot in any given month, anyway. Odds are high that the number is a fluke. There's no surge of new single-family houses on the way yet, and...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 18, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Prices Down All Around
February was an altogether lousy month for the economy, so who's surprised that local real estate sales stats for the month were equally bad? Median sales prices for all parts of the immediate metro area were down -- by quite a bit -- compared with February 2008, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the local multiple listing service. In the District, the median price for all homes, including condos, was down 13 percent to $360,000; Prince George's County, down 24 percent to $220,000; Montgomery County, down 24 percent to $315,500; Northern Virginia (including Fairfax and Arlington Counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church), down 23 percent to $318,000; Loudoun County, down 22 percent to $294,000. And in the Prince William County, Manassas City and Manassas Park City grouping, price was down 36 percent from last year to $169,500. There was some good news in that Prince...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 11, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Sharpen Your Elbows to Get In on Borrower Bailout
Ah, it was good to see so much detail laid out for the government's new refinance and loan-modification programs for borrowers at risk of foreclosure. The 17 pages of guidelines are government poetry, what with all the acronyms, formulas and step-by-step directions. It makes for lousy reading, but all those details increase the odds that the program will actually work. If you don't believe me, consider the infinitely complicated IRS Form 1040 and its effectiveness at separating you from your money. If a quick run through this calculator indicates you may qualify for a refinance (available even if falling values have wiped out your equity, as long as you're current on payments) or a loan modification (available if you're behind on payments or on the verge of foreclosure) get your financial documents together quickly and call your lender. They are going to be swamped with calls. Some of the largest...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
How's That? Home Sales, Prices, Inventory All Drop
The National Association of Realtors is out this morning with its home-sales report for January. And it shows a surprising mix: The number of existing-home sales, of all types, fell 5.3 percent from December to January. (That number is adjusted to account for seasonal variations; it's down 8.6 percent compared with a year earlier.) The median price fell 3.07 percent in January to $170,300. (That's an annual decrease of 14.8 percent.) What's odd is that total inventory of homes available for sale also fell 2.7 percent. If both sales and inventory are down, that means fewer homes were put on the market in January than in December. Usually the supply of homes for sale starts to drift up in January as sellers anticipate the busier spring market. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said the decline in new listings could in part be because of moratoriums on foreclosures that...
By Elizabeth Razzi | February 25, 2009; 10:32 AM ET | Comments (3)
Will Housing Market Spring Forward?
Okay, the Super Bowl is well past and daylight savings time is less than two weeks away. Both are harbingers of spring -- and the fabled "spring selling season" for real estate. Will we have one this year? Is anyone seeing signs of more buyer activity yet? Are sellers (especially the not-desperate ones) thinking about giving it a try? We'll get another blood-pressure reading on the state of the national market this morning, when the National Association of Realtors releases its sales -- and price -- figures for January. And a week stuffed full of housing data will conclude on Thursday with stats on new-home sales. These numbers all lag what's happening in the market today. That's simply the nature of statistics; they're always a rear-view mirror thing. What are you seeing out the windshield? Any signs of spring out there?...
By Elizabeth Razzi | February 25, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
