Over the past few months I have talked a lot about whether St Louis home prices have hit bottom yet and, in an article about 3 months ago said it appeared they bottomed out last year. When writing on the topic have stressed that, by the time we see solid proof of the bottom we will be past it and home prices will already be on the rise. Today’s pending home sales from the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) supports this notion and shows signs that increasing demand and decreasing supply is putting a damper on the rate of recovery of home sales and will also lead to higher home prices. Yesterday I wrote about home prices in the U.S. increasing 6.9 percent in the 2nd quarter (according to the Case-Shiller index) and increasing over 5 percent during the same period here in St. Louis. Continue Reading →
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The S&P/Case-Shiller report was published today showing that U.S. home prices increased 6.9 percent in the 2nd quarter of 2012 from the quarter before. That’s great, but St. Louis is not included in their 10 nor 20 city index so it doesn’t tell us how we are doing here in St. Louis. Fortunately we have the market data available to see how St. Louis stacks up and, I’m happy to say (as the chart below shows), St. Louis home prices, with a 5.2 percent increase from the 1st quarter of 2012 to the 2nd quarter, is only running a little behind the national average! Continue Reading → St. Louis building permits issued for new homes continues on track to out perform 2011 in the largest counties in the area, according to a report just released by the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri. According to the report, the counties of St Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson have all seen more single-family building permits issued YTD (through July) in 2012 than in 2011, and Franklin county is only 2 permits shy of where they were in 2011 at the same time. Continue Reading → I have good news for homeowners that are underwater on the mortgage and need to do a short sale, or for buyers looking to buy a short sale. The Federal Housing Financing Agency just issued new guidelines to lenders that service Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans that are intended to “offer a streamlined short sale approach” which will be music to the ears of anyone that has been through the process. I don’t always agree with the actions of the FHFA but I think this is a good move and will help the market. The new guidelines, which go into effect November 1, 2012, include: Continue Reading → What are sellers’ concessions? A seller concession can be any negotiation where the seller, builder, developer, salesperson or any interested party gives a credit to the borrower at closing. The seller concession can help lower or eliminate the amount of money a borrower is required to bring to the closing table. Continue Reading → I spend a lot of time talking about real estate with people. Some of the most common questions I hear is “how’s the market”, “where’s the best place to buy” and “what markets are hot”. Continue Reading → It’s been a rocky few months, however new home activity in the Midwest continued to show signs of improvement in July. According to the report on New Residential Construction for July 2012 just released by the Commerce Department, new building permits for single-family homes in the Midwest increased in July 2.5 percent from the month before 16.9 percent from a year ago. Housing starts, on the other hand, were down 5.6 percent for the month but was up 12.0 percent from a year ago. Continue Reading → FHA remains to be a great alternative for buyers with limited resources for a down payment and closing costs or past credit problems. Underwriting guidelines are more lenient than conventional guidelines. Continue Reading → Below is a video update on the St. Louis Real Estate Market that I prepare monthly. In this video I do a quick recap of the news in the St Louis real estate market for the month as well as 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 is and where it is headed. (Check out all our market update videos on our YouTube Channel – click here. Continue Reading → St. Louis home prices, after falling about 2.4 percent from the 1st quarter of 2011 to the 1st quarter of 2012, are projected to remain flat from the beginning of this year through the 1st quarter of 2013, according to a report released this week by FISERV. Historically, home prices remaining flat would not be good, but after what we have been through, with St Louis home prices falling 16.7 percent from their peak at the beginning of 2007 to their current level, flat is good. Continue Reading → St. Louis home prices in the 2nd quarter were at $134,700 for a median priced home according to the latest data from the National Association of REALTORS® making St. Louis 46th in terms of the lowest home prices of the 161 metro areas covered by the NAR report. Another NAR report shows the typical income needed to buy a median priced home and, based upon St. Louis’ median home price, the report shows that, with a down payment of just 5 percent, an income of about $29,601 per year would be necessary to buy a typical home in St. Louis. Continue Reading →
The St Louis foreclosure rate in July increased 4.2 percent from the month before with 1,860 properties receiving foreclosure notices during the month which is an increase of 22.53 percent from a year ago. The increase for the month is in sharp contrast to the U.S. foreclosure rate which declined 7.79 percent in July from the month before and for the State of Missouri as a whole which saw a decline of 3.2 percent from the month before. ARE YOU PRE-QUALIFIED? Have you given much thought to how much of a mortgage payment would be for your dream home? Should you talk to you mortgage professional before house hunting? Absolutely! Even if you haven’t so much as selected a Realtor®, it’s important to talk with your mortgage professional first. Why? Continue Reading → St. Louis sellers and listing agents are showing some modest confidence in the St Louis real estate market as indicated by the increases in the asking prices of homes for sale in St. Louis. According to data from the St. Louis Home Team, asking prices in the St. Louis metro area rose just a tad (0.3 percent) in August from the month before and were up 2.4 percent from a year ago. Continue Reading → Assuming you plan to stay put for 3 years or more, buying a home is a better financial decision than renting a home, according to a new report by Zillow. To arrive at this conclusion, Zillow analyzed the “breakeven horizon” in more than 200 metropolitan areas and 7,500 U.S. cities to determine how many years it would take owning a home before it becomes more advantageous than renting the same home from a financial perspective. In more than 75 percent of those metros analyzed, within about 3 years a homeowner would break-even on owning a home versus renting a home. Continue Reading → Recently I was contacted by a prospect that was referred to me from a past client. This prospect was interested in a VA loan and had some general questions about the loan process and VA loans. He had mentioned he was currently working with the VA on some credit issues, but the process was taking a long time. It turned out, the prospect was “working” with a mortgage company that had “VA” in their name and there was no affiliation with the VA. I’ve seen this happen numerous times with both VA and FHA where a prospective homebuyer contacts or is contacted by a lender that implies they are who they are not. Know who you are dealing with. Continue Reading → St. Louis home prices are significantly outperforming other metro markets as evidenced by today’s release of the the S&P/Case-Shiller Index report for May 2012 which showed both the 10-city and 20-city composites, increased by 2.2 percent from the month before while St Louis home prices (see chart below) increased 9.6 percent from the month before. On a year-over-year basis, both the 10-city and 20-city composites saw declines, 1.0 percent and 0.7 percent respectively while St. Louis home prices in May increased 3.4 percent from the year before. Continue Reading → According to a report just released by the Home Builders Association of St. Louis (HBA), St Louis new home construction activity is on the rise! The HBA report shows that there have been 1,275 permits issued for new homes through June of this year in St. Louis City and St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin County which is an increase of 29 percent from last year at this time when there had been 989 total permits issued for new homes in the St. Louis area. Continue Reading → Over one in four homeowners in the U.S. with a mortgage are “underwater” meaning they owe more on their homes than they are currently worth and, according to data just released from a survey by Zillow, 75 percent of them are underwater by 40 percent or more meaning it will most likely be many years until they even have the hope of seeing equity in their home again. Nonetheless, this has not deterred the majority of these underwater homeowners from “staying the course” as 59 percent said would not consider a strategic default in order to get out from under their home. Continue Reading → The National Association of REALTORS released it’s Pending Home Sales Index for June today showing a decrease of 1.4 percent in the index from the month before (seasonally adjusted) and a 9.5 percent increase from a year ago. However, here in the Midwest, the numbers are better with pending home sales decreasing just 0.4 percent from May, the smallest decrease for the month of all the regions, and Midwest pending home sales in June increased 17.3 percent from a year ago, which is the highest year-over-year increase of all regions in the U.S. Continue Reading → foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions) we’re reported on 9,672 properties in the St. Louis metro area in the first half of 2012, which is a 10.08 percent increase from the prior 6-month period and a 8.27 percent increase from the first half of 2011. Continue Reading → Every borrower’s situation is different. My goal is to provide various options/loan programs that are available to meet the borrower’s needs. When considering a refinance, the following are typical situations borrowers face: Continue Reading → Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau released new home sales data for June 2012 and while the rest of the country reels from a decrease of 8.4 percent in the new home sales rate from the month before (seasonally adjusted), here in the Midwest we can celebrate an increase of almost 15 percent in the new home sales rate to 55,000 (seasonally adjusted annual rate) from 48,000 the month before and an increase of 50 percent in actual new home sales in June in the Midwest to 6,000 new homes sold from 4,000 the month before. Continue Reading → St Louis home prices have not hit bottom yet, according to a report just released this morning by Zillow, which shows that St. Louis home prices fell by 4.0 percent in the second quarter of 2012 from the year before. St Louis home prices are predicted by Zillow to fall another 2.6 percent in the coming year. Continue Reading → I’m writing this article because I am constantly faced with this preconception that getting rid of mold somehow involves killing it first, as if you have to sneak up behind it and snuff it out before it knows you’re there. Yes, this stuff can be dangerous, but not like that. Continue Reading → Yesterday’s existing home sales report from the National Association of REALTORS® shows existing home sales in June were at at a seasonally adjusted-annual rate of 4.37 million units which is a decrease of 5.4 percent from the month before, and a 4.5 percent increase from the year before and is at the lowest level since October 2011. Continue Reading → Recently, I heard a radio commercial about “special” financing for certain veterans implying this “special” loan is available for a “limited time only.” The good news is that the Veterans Administration (VA) offers an ongoing mortgage loan program to benefit members of the armed forces who have generally served for two years in peace time, or 90 days during conflict. Members of the National Guard or Reserves who have served for six years are eligible along with widows of veterans if the veteran died in a service-related incident. The VA offers loans to: Purchase a New or Existing Home, Rate Reduction Refinance, and Cash-Out Refinance. Borrowers are evaluated by their credit worthiness and their ability to show stable and sufficient income to cover the costs of owning a home, cover other obligations and expenses and have enough left for family support. Traditional credit scoring is not used by the VA in underwriting. Non-married co-borrowers are not permitted. VA loans must be the borrowers’ primary residence. Continue Reading → The U.S. Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued their report on New Residential Construction for June 2012 showing an increase in single-family home building permits from the year before of 19.7 percent and a 21.7 percent increase in new home starts for the same period. Continue Reading → Fannie Mae has launched a new foreclosure prevention program called “Know your Options” that has been in development for about a year and has, as it’s top priority, “helping homeowners avoid foreclosure”. The program includes working with and training 18 of it’s largest loan servicers as well as launching a website for consumers, KnowYourOptions.com, which contains educational tools and resources for homeowners that may be facing foreclosure and opening 12 “Mortgage Help Centers” in the areas hardest hit by the housing crisis. Continue Reading → More good news on the real estate market arrived this morning in the S&P/Experian report on credit defaults which revealed that mortgage default rates on first mortgages fell to 1.41 percent in June bringing it to it’s lowest level since May 2007. This is significant as this is the “leading indicator” for foreclosures which have hammered home prices for the past 5 years plus this represents a significant decline from when the mortgage default rate peaked at 5.67 percent in May 2009. Continue Reading → |
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