10.29.2008

Advice for Renters: Wait Until 2010 to Buy
SeekingAlpha.com

Housing crash helping Obama. Agree?
OCRegister, CA

L.A. is hit hard as home prices continue their record-breaking fall
U.S. home prices continued to fall at a record-breaking pace in August, with the Los Angeles area posting among the sharpest declines, according to a prominent index released Tuesday.
LATimes

Home prices fall 16.6 percent in one year
Monroe News Star, LA

Metro, US home prices take double-digit plunge
DetNews.com, MI
If that sounds bad enough, take note: that's before the nation became entangled in the biggest Wall Street crisis since the Great Depression, ...

10.28.2008

Real estate report shows slowdown in values, sales (HI)
Maui News, HI
Median price for single-family homes on Maui overall decreased by 4 percent for the 2008 third quarter to $600000, from $625000 in the same period last year ...

Housing: How Low Can It Go?
The Washington Independent, DC
Sales rose the most in areas where foreclosures drove down prices, the data showed. In the San Fernando Valley, the sales jump was even higher — 82 percent, ...

Home prices in Palm Beach County, Fla., resume tumble
TMCnet
... ago as buyers snapped up foreclosures at bargain prices, the group said Friday. After rising to $323300 in August, the median price in Palm Beach County ...

Mass. median home price drops below $300G
Boston Herald, United States
“Foreclosures, tight mortgage-lending standards, job losses and and recession are all going to exert downward pressure on both median prices and the number ...

Snohomish County builders slash home prices (WA)
HeraldNet, WA
By Debra Smith Mike Pattison just took his own advice and bought a new home in the Silver Lake area. He bargained hard for a lower price and even convinced ...
 

US housing shows ray of hope
Globe and Mail, Canada
The median price of a new home in September fell 9.1 per cent from a year earlier to $218400, its lowest level since 2004, according to Bloomberg. ...

Countrywide plan may cut mortgage rates for 395000 borrowers
Los Angeles Times, CA
The federal program in effect requires a lender to cut the principal to 87% of the home's current value so that the borrower can receive a smaller long-term ...

Bernanke May Seek New Tactics as Fed Rate Nears 1%
Bloomberg 

Valley homes sales spike as prices fall 37% (Los Angeles, CA)
Los Angeles Times, CA
Sales of existing single-family houses spiked by 82% in the San Fernando Valley in September as median prices fell by 37% from year-ago levels, ...

 

Greenspan admits flaws in regulating securities Xinhua, China Greenspan said that a necessary condition for the crisis to end would be stabilization in home prices, which would not happen in many months in the future. ...

US house prices slump most since 1991
The Age, Australia
US home prices tumbled the most in at least 17 years in August and foreclosures increased to the highest on record, reducing property values as the global ...

 

Housing Prices Tumble in August as Foreclosures Surge (Update3)
Bloomberg
24, showed the US median sale price plummeted 9.5 percent in August to $203100 from $224400 a year earlier, the biggest drop on record. ...

What California Realtors say about Housing Prices
BusinessWeek
The Realtors forecast that prices will decline 6% next year to a statewide median of $350000. That’s after a 32% drop in 2008.

The free market works, if we just let it
Housing Wire
With banks choking on a glut of empty, foreclosed properties, the median sale price for detached single-family houses in Prince William plunged 41 percent ...

US foreclosure filings up 71 percent in 3Q
The Associated Press
... while the statewide median home price fell 34 percent to $283000, according to MDA DataQuick. RealtyTrac, however, reported foreclosure filings in ...

Foreclosures in California on steep rise
San Francisco Chronicle,  USA
"Now what would cause home prices to start to look like they'll level off, I don't know." Moody's Economy.com has been predicting that nationwide ...

Home Prices Won't Level Off Until 2009: Barclays
RTT News, NY
A steady decline in inventories back to normal levels would imply an imminent bottom in home prices. In our view, the decline in home prices will continue ...

Selling short in Montclair (LA County, CA)
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, CA
By Canan Tasci, Staff Writer As bleak as the housing market seems, falling home prices are giving some first-time buyers the chance to purchase their own ...

ABC News

They Did It On Purpose: The Housing Bubble & Its Crash were Engineered by the US Government, the Fed & Wall Street The Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates, and by 2002 a home-buying frenzy was underway. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went along by guaranteeing the increasing number of mortgage loans. Center for Research on Globalization, Canada

San Diego median home price plummets $142,000 in past year! (CA)
The median price of a San Diego home or condo fell to $328,000 last month, compared to $470,000 in September 2007.
Homes Sales Quicken as Median Price Falls to $328000
San Diego Business Journal, CA

White House Will Not Magically Fix Home Prices
Radar Online, NY

Foreclosure shoppers fuel SoCal homebuying rebound
OCRegister, CA
Foreclosures helped push SoCal’s median selling price down to $308500, lowest since May 2003 and 39% below peak $505000 reached in spring and summer of ‘07. ...

OC Home Prices Fall Again, Off 34% from Peak (CA)
Orange County Business Journal, CA
Orange County's median home price dropped another $15000 in September from August, although sales volumes continued their recent trend of ...

Housing slump, job losses lead to bankruptcy filings
Record-Searchlight, CA
The median sales price for a home in Shasta County in August was $225000, a 25 percent decline from the peak median of $300000 in March 2006, according to ...

Home Prices Seem Far From Bottom
New York Times, United States
Home prices across much of the country are likely to fall through late 2009, economists say, and in some markets the trend could last even longer depending ...

Brooklyn Home Prices Drop as Banks Cut Jobs and Curb Lending (NY)
Bloomberg
Brooklyn home prices tumbled 5.6 percent in the third quarter as Wall Street job losses reduced demand for real ...

Valley home prices fall again (AZ)
East Valley Tribune, AZ
The bad news is, Valley home prices fell in July for the 17th consecutive month, tying a record for prolonged declines set more than a decade ago. ...
 

County seeks to help foreclosure victims (OH)
Lebanon Western Star, OH
Eligibility requirements include anyone making 120 percent of median income. This is roughly $79450 a year for a family of four. The county would fund this ...

Prices, sales of Bay Area high-end homes may fall next year ... (CA)
San Jose Mercury News,  USA
She also predicts the median price of the houses sold statewide next year will be $358000, down 6.0 percent from $381000, which is CAR's estimated median ...

Los Angeles Median Home Value: $380000
LA Weekly, CA
Last year, a Weekly story by David Ferrell laid out the beginning of these troubles, with economists warning that the worst of foreclosures and home value ...

Where Recession Will Hit Hardest
Forbes, NY
In Boston, the median homeowner has $60000 extra in his home. In Seattle, it's about $80000. In Honolulu, it's $120000. Foreclosures aren't flooding markets ...
 

Home sales rise, prices decline as buyers snap up Kalamazoo-area Foreclosures (MI)
Through September this year, the average residential sales price declined 10 percent to $140,121; the median sales price declined 12 percent to $119,250.
MLive.com, MI
 

To cut losses, owners consider default
MiamiHerald.com, FL
The median negative equity of borrowers who bought at the market's peak is $38321 for buyers who put down the median 10 percent, according to Zillow.com. ...

Home Builders Helping Potential Clients Rebuild Credit
CNNMoney.com
The national median is 723. "We used to just take people [with a credit score in the] 500s and get them into the 600s," Klinger said. ...

Q&A: Robert J. Shiller, author of 'Irrational Exuberance'
I think we've learned some very elementary lessons. Don't think that because something didn't happen for the last 30 years it won't happen. It's amazing how people thought home prices can only go up.
Sacramento Bee,  USA

Housing won't see rebound until 2014
"The housing market will not resume growing until 2012," Haveman said in an interview after his presentation. "Then it will just sit there for a few more years. We won't see any significant appreciation in the housing market in the East Bay and California for five years."
Inside Bay Area, CA

Foreclosure shadow spreads (CA)
OCRegister, CA
DataQuick broke down the more than 3300 unsold foreclosures by ZIP codes. (Check our sortable ZIP chart HERE.) The Register used median sales activity to ...

Mortgage crunch takes toll on bystanders (NV)
Reno Gazette Journal, NV
Nevada, which led the country in soaring home prices, now leads the country in foreclosures. The median sales price for a single-family home in Washoe ...

Home values hold owners hostage (FL)
Florida Today, FL
Zillow estimates the median down payment in 2006 was only 10 percent, down from 17 percent just two years earlier. More than 77 percent of those loans are ...

Rockland home prices fall 11 percent in third quarter (NY)
Lower Hudson Journal news, NY
Single-family homes sold during the quarter recorded a median selling price of $462500 compared to $518450 a year ago, it said. ...
 

Home sales soar as prices tumble (MN)
Pioneer Press, MN
The median price fell to $189900, down nearly 16 percent from a year ago. This is the first time since March 2006 the market has shown a year-over-year gain ..