By Dennis Norman, on June 23rd, 2011 Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau released new home sales data for May 2011 showing a decrease of 2.1 percent from the month before, and an increase of 13.5 percent from a year ago.
The seasonally-adjusted new home sales rate for May was 319,000 homes, down from 326,000 the month before. The supply of new homes on the market decreased from an adjusted 6.3 month supply the month before to a 6.2 month supply in May. The median new home price increased for the month to $222,600, a 2.6 percent increase from a Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on June 22nd, 2011
A “first-look” report issued by Lender Processing Services, one of the countries largest loan servicers and aggregators of loan performance data, shows mortgage delinquencies decreased 0.1 percent in May from the month before and down over 18 percent from the year before. Other good news in the report is the U.S. foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate declined 0.7 percent from the month before.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 22nd, 2011
A report released this morning by CoreLogic shows that the current residential “shadow” inventory as of April 2011 declined to 1.7 million units, down from 1.9 million units a year ago. This current shadow inventory represents a 5 month supply, same as the supply a year ago.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 21st, 2011 Today’s existing home sales report from the National Association of REALTORS® shows existing home sales in May were at at a seasonally adjusted-annual rate of 4.81 million units which is a decrease of 3.8 percent from the month before and is a decrease of 15.3 percent from a year ago and is the lowest rate of home sales since November 2010 when it was 4.64 million.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 17th, 2011 Simple economics tells us that when supply exceeds demand prices suffer, just as we have seen in the housing market over the past three-plus years. A report by Brendan Lowney, a macroeconomist with Forest Economic Advisors (FEA) estimates that an excess home inventory of 2.5 million homes exist at this time. He says that this oversupply has put downward pressure on home prices, which in turn has caused a variety of undesirable effects, such as pushing more home owners “under water” which, in turn, causes even more defaults, thereby further increasing the oversupply.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 17th, 2011 Weekly I produce a short (roughly 5 minute) video update on the St. Louis Real Estate Market that is published on various web sites. I do a quick recap of the news in the St Louis real estate market for the week, then an overview of the St Louis housing market itself. The update includes charts with up to the date data on the St Louis housing market including St Louis home prices, average time to sell a home in the St Louis area as well as other data and charts to show where the St Louis real estate market Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on June 16th, 2011
The U.S. Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued their report on New Residential Construction for May 2011 showing a 2.5 percent increase in single-family home building permits from the month before, and a 3.7 percent increase in new home starts compared to the month before.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 16th, 2011
RealtyTrac released their foreclosure report this morning for May 2011 which shows foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled foreclosures and bank REO’s) were reported on 214,927 homes in May which is a 2 percent decrease from the month before and a 33 percent decrease from May 2010.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 14th, 2011 The headline today on a CNBC article was “US Housing Crisis is Now Worse than Great Depression” and there are many similar articles in other publications as well…in fact, if you Google “Housing Crisis Worse Than Great Depression” there are over 100 exact matches just in the past month. The writer’s all seem to be hanging onto one stat that came out of the Case-Shiller home price index reports, that being that the “peak to trough” decline in home prices during this housing recession has hit 33 percent, which exceeds the 31 percent decline during the Great Depression. But wait, Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on June 10th, 2011 The results of a survey conducted in eight countries for Genworth Financial was released today and contains some interesting findings. The survey was conducted on existing home-owners as well as people that said they were potential first-time home-buyers in eight countries; U.S., U.K., Ireland, Italy, Australia, Mexico, Canada and India.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 10th, 2011 Weekly I produce a short (roughly 5 minute) video update on the St. Louis Real Estate Market that is published on various web sites. I do a quick recap of the news in the St Louis real estate market for the week, then an overview of the St Louis housing market itself. The update includes charts with up to the date data on the St Louis housing market including St Louis home prices, average time to sell a home in the St Louis area as well as other data and charts to show where the St Louis real estate market Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on June 9th, 2011 Robert Shiller
I’m doing this article as I attend a presentation by Robert Shiller, Yale Economics Professor and Co-Founder of the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices at the S&P Housing Summit 2011, as he discussed “Unusual Factors Influencing the Outlook for the U.S. Housing Market. So it may be a little choppy, but here are the highlights of his presentation “live”:
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By Dennis Norman, on June 8th, 2011 The “State of the Nation’s Housing“ Report for 2011 by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University does not paint a very pretty picture of the housing market, nor does it give us a whole lot to look forward to with regard to the near-term future of the U.S. housing market.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 7th, 2011
A report released today by CoreLogic shows that 17.10 percent (97,772) of all St. Louis homeowners with a mortgage were in a negative equity position in the first quarter of 2011, up slightly from 17.0 percent the prior quarter. Negative equity is also referred to as being “underwater” or “upside down” and refers to homeowners that owe more on their mortgages than the current value of their home.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 6th, 2011 Dennis Norman
The St. Louis foreclosure rate in March was 1.73 percent, down slightly from 1.78 percent the prior month, but up over 21 percent from a year ago, according to a report published by CoreLogic. The report shows that the St. Louis Mortgage Delinquency rate (Serious delinquency, 90+ days delinquent) decreased to 4.83 percent in March, down from 5.1 percent the month before and down 14 percent from a year ago. This is the first month the St Louis Mortgage Delinquency rate was below 5 percent since August 2009.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 3rd, 2011 Weekly I produce a short (roughly 5 minute) video update on the St. Louis Real Estate Market that is published on various web sites. I do a quick recap of the news in the St Louis real estate market for the week, then an overview of the St Louis housing market itself. The update includes charts with up to the date data on the St Louis housing market including St Louis home prices, average time to sell a home in the St Louis area as well as other data and charts to show where the St Louis real estate market Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on June 3rd, 2011 There is a lot of talk in the media today about the poor housing market and how an increase in employment would help bring the housing market back. However, the question is, will a recovery in the job market bring the housing market back, or will a recovery in the housing market bring the job market back?
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By Dennis Norman, on June 1st, 2011
A report released this morning by CoreLogic shows home prices in the St. Louis declined in April 2011 by 9.70 percent from the year before which is a larger decline than the month before when St Louis home prices were down 9.44 percent from the year before. If we take “distressed sales” (foreclosures, REO’s and short-sales) out then home prices declined by 3.53 percent in April from the year before.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 31st, 2011 Dennis Norman
Today the S&P/Case-Shiller Index report for the first quarter of 2011 was released showing home prices continue to fall and that the national home price index hit a new recession low. Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels according to the report.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 26th, 2011
RealtyTrac released their foreclosure report this morning for the first quarter of 2011 showing that foreclosure homes (sales of bank-owned homes and those in some stage of foreclosure) accounted for 28 percent of all U.S. residential sales during the quarter. This is up slightly from 27 percent the prior quarter and the highest percentage since the first quarter of 2010, when 29 percent of all sales were foreclosure sales.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 25th, 2011
A “first-look” report issued by Lender Processing Services, one of the countries largest loan servicers and aggregators of loan performance data, shows mortgage delinquencies increased 2.4 percent in April, changing the downward trend we have seen in the prior few months. The good news in this report is that the U.S. foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate declined 1.6 percent from the month before.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 24th, 2011 Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau released new home sales data for April 2011 showing an increase of 7.3 percent from the month before, and a decrease of 23.1 percent from a year ago.
The seasonally-adjusted new home sales rate for April was 323,000 homes. The supply of new homes on the market decreased from an adjusted 7.2 month supply the month before to a 6.5 month supply in April. The median new home price increased for the month to $217,900, a 1.6 percent increase from a revised median price of $214,500 the Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on May 24th, 2011 The newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), one of the newest agencies under the Federal Government, created “to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans”. Hmm, sounds good, but as usual, I was skeptical. However, thus far, I’m pretty impressed with the CFPB’s approach to changing mortgage disclosure statements in an effort to make it easier for consumers to understand the terms of the home mortgage they have been offered as well as to shop “apples to apples” for the best home mortgage.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 23rd, 2011 According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of Trulia and RealtyTrac, 45 percent of American adults say the government is not doing enough to prevent foreclosures. Only 17 percent think the government is doing too much and 16 percent say just the right amount is being done.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 20th, 2011 UGH…
According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of Trulia and RealtyTrac, 54 percent of American adults believe that recovery in the housing market will not happen until 2014 or later. In a previous survey, six months ago, 42 percent of American adults said they thought the market would turn around by 2012 or had already turned around, but now only 23 percent think this will happen.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 20th, 2011 What do gas prices have to do with real estate? Plenty, according to a new survey by Coldwell Banker among it’s network of real estate agents. According to the survey, 75 percent said that the recent spike in gas prices has influenced their clients’ decisions on where to live, and 93 percent said if gas prices continue to rise, more home buyers will choose to live somewhere that allows for a closer commute to their work.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 19th, 2011
St. Louis existing-home sales in April were down 30.1 percent from a year ago, after the prior month’s sales were down 20.3 percent from the year prior. This disturbing trend points to a decrease in the number of home sales in St. Louis in 2011 from 2010, even though industry experts are predicting an increase in U.S. existing home sales this year over last.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 18th, 2011
Negative equity is the dominant factor driving the real estate market according to CoreLogic in it’s “U.S. Housing and Market Trends” report that was released today. According to the report, as of the 4th quarter of 2010, over 11 million (23 percent) of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage were in a negative equity position, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than the current value of their home.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 17th, 2011
The U.S. Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued their report on New Residential Construction for April 2011 showing a 1.8 percent decrease in single-family home building permits from the month before, and a 5.1 percent decrease in new home starts compared to the month before.
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By Dennis Norman, on May 16th, 2011 HomeSteps, the home-sale division of Freddie Mac, announced today it is launching a nationwide sales promotion on it’s inventory of foreclosed homes starting today. The promotion, titled “The HomeSteps Summer Sales Promotion”, is offering up to pay buyer’s closing costs, up to 3.5 percent of the sales price and a bonus to the selling agent for offers on Freddie Mac homes originated between today and July 31st and that close by September 30, 2011.
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