Real Estate Market

While the stock market gets a lot of attention and daily press, most people are directly affected by the housing market. Let's use this forum to share thoughts and insight about the condition of the market around the world.

I found this article at http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/04/27/daily16.html dated April 28, 2009.

"A new report shows home prices across the country continued to drop in February, and Phoenix has the unfortunate designation of loss leader.

Phoenix home prices fell 35 percent from February 2008 to February 2009, according to the new S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. That’s the largest decline of any of the 20 largest cities in the U.S. In addition, Phoenix home prices are down 51 percent from their peak."

It goes on to list the five most affected cities as Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Miami and Los Angeles

(They're at it again...)

Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules
Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

...
In a letter to the CEO's of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, Democrat, Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner, Democrat, New York, warned that a 70 percent sales threshold "may be too onerous" and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper.

The legislators asked the companies to "make appropriate adjustments" to their underwriting standards for condos, the paper added.
[More at the link...]

if their govt created/run or backers of the dems they can do as they please. fan & fred are not included in the pay czars duties. now the dems are floating the idea of taxing health coverage plans. guess who's health coverage plans get excluded? THE UNIONS thats blantant discrimination, unconstitutional, and should be struck down by the couerts if passed.

now the house passed the "cap and tax" bill, without even collating the amendments in before voting for it - ensuring nobody knew what they were when voting for it. The last thing we need is more taxes, if we are to come out of the economic downturn, in my opinion.

that gutless boehner had them by the nads and left them off the hook. its more important to leave town on friday than to stop the vote. hopefully it dies in the senate.

US Foreclosures Continued to Rise in Third Quarter
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33312786/
The number of Americans receiving a foreclosure notice in the third quarter continued to grow, according to a new report, despite government programs intended to attack the problem.

Foreclosure notices were up 5 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter, and up 23 percent from the same quarter a year ago, according to a report released by foreclosure tracking Web site RealtyTrac. Foreclosure notices are defined as a default notice, bank repossession or auction sale notice.

In all, 937,840 properties in the US received foreclosure fillings in the third quarter.

“Foreclosure rates are rising because of unemployment,” says Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. Those who were struggling to pay back subprime loans are now at the same time dealing with unemployment, he said. The national unemployment rate was at 9.8 percent in September.

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[More at the link...]