I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and an even better 2008. There are many topics that I will be covering for the next few weeks so stay tuned.
Like always, if you any suggestions or interesting topics, feel free to email me.
Thank you
Finally, the Bush administration has decided to step in and try to help those that are finding themselves in a foreclosure situation. The new plan is suppose to help 1.2 million distressed homeowners.
There is a catch though: mortgage interest rates will be frozen only for ARM borrowers who are not yet in foreclosure.
Here are a few main keypoints:
The plan is very courageous but there are too many impediments to its widespread adoption by investors and servicers.
To read the full details on this, go to Money CNN
While Chicago home prices don’t seem to be affected much by the continuing price decreasing that we see throughought the country, it is still obvious that the housing market continues to be unfavorable to people looking to sell their property.
The median single-family house price in the United States fell to $220,800, which was down 2 percent from a year ago. Condo prices showed some resiliency: At $226,900, they rose 2 percent compared with 12 months ago.
The biggest decline in sales appears to be concentrated in areas that had significant levels of speculative investment, including Nevada, Florida and Arizona,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement.
Most declines occurred either in once hot markets or Rust-Belt areas clobbered by economic setbacks and job losses, like Detroit and Cleveland.
Regionally, the best performing area was the Northeast, where the median home price rose 3.2 percent to $286,300. In the Midwest, the median price, at $170,800, was up 0.5 percent. Prices in the South fell 3.6 percent to $180,800, and in the West, they dropped 3.8 percent to $338,100. But the top performer house market is San Jose, Calif. where prices grew 9.4 percent over the past 12 months to $852,500.
During the housing boom, home sellers were in the driver’s seat with real estate agents circling around their property and they were offered very low commission rates. These times seem to be old gone and the roles have changed a bit.
According to Steve Murray of Real Trend, the average commission rate in 1991 was 6.1%. Ten years later, the average dropped to 5.4 and starting in 2005, the 5% rate was common among realtors. Everyone expected the rate to go even lower but when the housing bubble has burst, many houses found themselves sitting on the market for long periods of time. Therefore, the average commission in 2006 has increased to 5.18% .
According to recent surveys, many home owners believe they can sell their homes quicker by hiring the best real estate agents but those sales people come with a premium. I
n this case, the added percentage might actually help the realtors in the short run and even if the sales volume has dropped, their income might be steady.
Number of vacant homes on the market nationwide has reached the 2 million mark. The number of vacant homes for sale rose in the third quarter, according to the latest government reading that casts new harsh light on the weakness of the housing market.
The Census Bureau report puts the number of vacant homes for sale at 2.07 million in the period, up about 2 percent from the second quarter, and 7 percent above year ago levels.
The number is down 5 percent from the record high reading reached in the first quarter, though.
For purposes of comparison for the current situation, imagine the Detroit metropolitan area, which the Census Bureau estimated had 2.08 million households in its 2000 Census. Now picture virtually every house or condo empty, with a for sale sign in the front yard of every home, from inner-city Detroit to its suburbs, all the way to nearby cities such as Flint and Ann Arbor.
There are always some homes vacant and for sale, even in a booming real estate market.
LoopNet Inc, which operates the largest commercial real estate marketplace online, announced it acquired privately held Cityfeet.com, reported Inman News.
Cityfeet operates an online distribution network for commercial property listings that are sent to more than 100 partners, including the Web sites of The New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“The combination of LoopNet and City.feet.com will bring great benefits to both LoopNet and Cityfeet customers,” said Richard Boyle, LoopNet’s CEO and president. ” Read Full Article ->
On a lighter note, here is a great event for all of you yoga lovers. Yoga pro or not, attend the Global Mala event on Sunday, September 23 at 9am.
The Global Mala is an international event in which people all over the world will be practicing yoga simultaneously in honor of the UN International Day of Peace, from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv, London to Cape Town, Sydney to the hub event in Los Angeles.
Hundreds of people here in Chicago will be gathered at Grant Park to practice together- this is a great opportunity to get a nice easy workout outside with a number of people who share your passion! If you love the feeling that yoga gives you, just imagined it amplified – this is one of the intended effects of the event. Kind of like a “yoga marathon” but not so strenuous.
The goal is to raise awareness of peace and other issues such as global warming, aids, and refugees of war, and to generate change on an individual level across the globe, literally.
Celebrity participants include Sting, Jennifer Aniston, Christy Turlington, and Russell Simmons to name a few.
For more info go to www.globalmalachicago.info or www.globalmala.org.
Home prices have shown few signs of any turnaround, and a new report sees the downward slide continuing. Major housing markets showed worse declines. The Case-Shiller index covering 20 top metro areas for the month of June fell 3.5 percent, and the 10-city index dropped 4.1 percent year-over-year.
“The pullback in the U.S. residential real estate market is showing no signs of slowing down,” Robert J. Shiller, Chief Economist at MacroMarkets LLC said in a statement. “The year-over-year decline reported in the 2nd quarter of 2007 for the National Home Price Index is the lowest point in its reported history, which dates back to January 1987.”
The slump in housing prices began in mid-2005 when appreciation rates first started to slow and then reverse. During the past few months a credit crisis and a huge jump in default rates and foreclosures contributed to market declines.
Defaulting home owners have unleashed many new homes onto already sizable inventories. Read Full Article ->
Home sales could see an increase in the coming months, as the latest reading on the state of the battered U.S. real estate market from an industry trade group showed surprising strength.
The National Association of Realtors’ pending home sales index jumped 5 percent to 102.4 in June, the group announced Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast the index would slip 0.6 percent after a revised 3.7 percent drop in the May report.
It was the biggest increase in the index in three years. But that is up from a May reading that matches the second lowest on record. Only September 2001, the month of the terrorist attack, had a weaker pending home sales reading than May. Read Full Article ->