The chief economist of the National Association of Realtors seems to think the housing market is on the road to recovery. Yet, how long and how bumpy that road will be is still anyone’s best guess. For 2007, David Lereah is projecting that sales will remain flat, or fall only about 1%. Last months, figures [...]
Many experts predicted that the slump in housing would have many consumers tightening their spending belts. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Thanks to falling gas prices and notable growth in the job market, consumers are out and spending for the holiday season forcing some experts to reconsider just how big of an [...]
Realtytrac announced its third quarter 2006 U..S. Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report. Detroit, Ft. Lauderdale and Denver top the list followed by Miami, Dallas, Indianapolis, Ft. Worth, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Memphis. Commenting on the findings, RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio said, “The third quarter saw a marked increase in the number of properties entering some [...]
Denver-based Metrolist reported that the average price of all single family homes dropped from $283,131 in September to $280,551 in October in Denver. For condos and townhomes, the average price dropped from $156,250 to $152,000. The number of homes on the market dropped from 31,450 in September to 29,722 in October. Still, it was more [...]
Like many other areas of the country, Phoenix is feeling the effects of a slowing real estate market. Until recently, the market had allowed many home builders the ability to raise their prices on new homes as much as $1,000 to $10,000 almost every week. People were lining up submitting their names in lottery-style drawings [...]
Someone forgot to tell Houston that the real estate market was going bust. While the NAR reported nationwide sales of residential real estate dropped 14.2% in September, Houston saw sales of single family homes and condos climb 7.7% from just a year earlier. With the median price of an existing single-family home in Houston up [...]
If you ask the Consumer Bankers Assciation what the answer is, they would tell you its the nation’s credit elite. Who qualifies for this elite credit category? A study by the Consumer Bankers Association found that the average home equity borrower in 2006 has a FICO credit score of 730, a household income of almost [...]
While many areas of the country were reeaping the benefits of the recently-ended housing boom, it never quite made its way to several areas of the Midwest. Unfortunately today, many of those same untouched communities are feeling the effects of that now dying boom exemplified by a weakened local economy and significant job losses. Unlike [...]
The NAR reported that pending sales of existing U.S. homes fell 1.1 % in September. The Pending Home Sales Index fell to 109.1 from 110.3. However, the NAR is expecting demand to hold steady in the coming months. “The present level of home sales is relatively high in historic terms, and we can expect generally [...]
The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index was recently released. While August 2006 prices across the U.S. were 5.2% higher than a year ago, it was a rate of growth which was drastically lower than the 15.8% rise recorded in the same month in 2005 and the 20.4 percent uptick in 2004. Overall, prices fell in six of [...]