Walker’s Wholesale Houses

From a May 20, 2009 Report:

Single-family home construction posted a modest rebound in April, raising hopes that the three-year slide in housing is leveling off. But a bulging supply of unsold homes, record levels of foreclosures and still-falling home prices suggest that a sustained recovery isn’t likely until next spring at the earliest.

The Commerce Department said yesterday that construction of homes and apartments fell 12.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 units. That’s the lowest pace on records going back a half-century.

Applications for new building permits dropped 3.3 percent to an annual rate of 494,000, also a record low.

All of last month’s weakness came in the volatile multifamily part of construction. By contrast, single-family construction and permits both rose, which economists took as a hopeful sign that this bigger sector of home construction is stabilizing.

. . .  . .

The government report yesterday showed that multifamily construction plunged 46.1 percent to an annual rate of 90,000 units after a 23 percent fall in March. Permits for multifamily construction dropped 19.9 percent to 121,000 units.

Analysts said apartment construction is being hurt by a glut of condominiums on the market and by tightening credit conditions for commercial real estate.

Construction of single-family homes rose 2.8 percent in April to an annual rate of 368,000. That followed a 0.3 percent gain in March and no change in February.

Building permits for single-family homes rose 3.6 percent to a rate of 373,000 last month.

via Housing slump could be near bottom | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

According to the quarterly Housing Opportunity Index compiled by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Bank, housing affordability is reaching record levels in the US.  Nearly 73 percent of all homes sold in the first three months of 2009 considered affordable — the highest percentage ever reported by the 18-year-old index.  ”Affordable” means that a family making the national median household income of $64,000 must be able to devote no more than 28 percent of their income toward housing costs.

The most affordable major metropolitan areas and their median home prices are:  Indianapolis; Youngstown, Ohio; Akron, Ohio; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Syracuse, N.Y; Warren, Michigan;Cleveland; Buffalo, N.Y.; Toledo, Ohio; and Dayton, Ohio, with prices ranging from 78,000 to 119,000.

All real estate is local.  Here is a snippet from the May 20, 2009 Richmond Times Dispatch.  News on building permits and what new housing starts are happening.

RICHMOND VA Housing Market

In the Richmond area, there has been an increase in home sales but not much in home construction.

“Inventory levels are getting eaten up a little bit,” said Christopher Corrada, president of the Home Building Association of Richmond and vice president of East West Partners of Virginia Inc., a development firm in Midlothian.

“Even if the market is getting better, the biggest issue builders and developers face is they cannot get loans from banks. Banks are not lending on construction and development,” he said.

In Richmond area, 367 building permits were issued in the first quarter compared with 960 in the year-earlier period, a 62 percent year-over-year decline, according to Integra Realty Resources Richmond, a real estate research firm.

“We are still experiencing a continuing slowdown in the market,” said Tom Tyler, a senior analyst with Integra Realty.

Source: Housing slump could be near bottom | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — The National Association of Realtors says pending U.S. home sales rose from February to March as buyers took advantage of deeply discounted prices and low interest rates.

The real estate group today said its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for previously occupied homes rose 3.2 percent to 84.6 in March. The index was 1.1 percent above last year’s levels and has risen for two straight months after hitting a record low in January.

The index, which started in 2001, tracks signed contracts to purchase existing homes. Typically there is a oneto two-month lag between a contract and a done deal, so the index is a barometer for future home sales.

via Pending home sales up 3.2 percent in March | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Short sale vs. foreclosure – May. 8, 2009.  from CNNMoney.com

A. A short sale, in which you negotiate with the bank to sell your home for less than you owe on your mortgage, will have a dramatically negative affect on your credit.

A consumer who has been through a short sale could see a drop in her credit score of up to 200 points, essentially the same decrease as if the homeowner had gone into foreclosure, says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com.

And like a foreclosure, the negative mark will pull down the score for seven years.

That said, if you’re underwater on your mortgage and you need to move, a short sale is a better option than foreclosure.

Going through foreclosure will make it very difficult for you to get a loan for at least three to five years; if you’ve done a short sale, you may be able to qualify for a new mortgage within two years.

Published: April 24, 2009

Home sales in Virginia — including the Richmond area — continue to fall along with housing prices, but signs are emerging that the worst could be over, according to a report released yesterday by the Virginia Association of Realtors.

In Virginia, the median price of a house, with half selling for more and half for less, was $223,221, down 14.1 percent from the year-earlier period, according to the Realtors’ report.

However, the price was up 7.8 percent from the October-to-December period of 2008, indicating that prices could have reached bottom, housing experts said.

Statewide sales in the first quarter dropped 7.1 from the previous quarter and 4.7 percent from a year ago.

In perspective, sales are down 61 percent from their peak in the third quarter of 2005.

In the Richmond area, sales fell 18.2 percent from a year ago. The median sales price dropped 11 percent to $198,702, according to the report.

The central Virginia report shows the average number of days a house spends on the market in the Richmond area fell from 81 in January to 72 in March.

Most houses sold in the Richmond area in the first quarter were in the $100,000 to $199,999 price range. The next popular price range was $200,000 to $299,999. Only six houses sold for $1 million or more.

Elsewhere in Virginia, Prince William County and Manassas — with the most foreclosures in the state in 2008 — recorded the sharpest increase in sales, up 75.9 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. Median sale prices there fell 37.2 percent to $167,452 — the largest percentage drop in the state.

Sales in Northern Virginia rose 17.5 percent from a year ago, and median sales prices fell 19.5 percent to $325,400, the highest price in the state.

via Hints of upturn evident in Va. home sales | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The median price for a single-family house fell 14% to $169,000 in the first quarter from a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors reported.

The trade group said first-time home buyers accounted for half of all purchases in the quarter, and many of them zeroed in on foreclosed homes. That dragged down the median, the Realtors said.

The median price for the latest quarter is down 26% from a peak of $227,600 in the third quarter of 2005. The latest median price was down from a year earlier in 134 of the 152 metro areas included in the survey.

Source: U.S. Median House Price Declines 14% – WSJ.com.

Source: RealtyTrac: April foreclosures rise 32 percent

The number of U.S. households faced with losing their homes to foreclosure jumped 32 percent in April compared with the same month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing the highest rates, according to data released Wednesday.

More than 342,000 households received at least one foreclosure-related notice in April, RealtyTrac Inc. said. That means one in every 374 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing last month, the highest monthly rate since the Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure listing firm began its report in January 2005.

About 63,900 homes were repossessed in April, down 11 percent from about 71,700 in March, RealtyTrac said. But the mortgage industry has resumed cracking down on delinquent borrowers after foreclosures were temporarily halted by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, together with many other lenders.

On a state-by-state basis, Nevada had one in every 68 households receive a foreclosure filing, down 18 percent from March but still the nation’s highest rate. In Florida, one in every 135 households received a filing in April. For California, the rate was one in every 138 households.

Rounding out the top 10 were Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and Ohio.

My phone rings from my advertising, or my email fills up from my online lead generators.

They leave you a message with their name and property address … what’s your next step?

Here is one step that I follow.

I visit my local county government website.

You can find out some very useful information like who is on the deed to the property, the last sale date, last sale amount, bedrooms, baths, square footage, and much more in just a couple minutes.

This helps to qualify the lead and gives you additional information before you talk to the seller.

Sometimes I discover that the person contacting me is not the seller – I know right away that I’m dealing with a wholesaler, or perhaps someone who didn’t realize they didn’t own the house.

Here’s Your Homework:

If you are unfamiliar with your local county website, go google it now … “<county name> <state> county website”.

Once you find it, see how much information you can uncover before even talking with your seller.

THE HOUSING BUST JOHN F. WASIK

Published: May 11, 2009

We might be looking at a lost generation for U.S. home values.

Far too many analysts are calling a bottom to the housing market after home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined at a slower pace in February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index.

Don’t be blinded by the glint of optimism in headlines about rising consumer confidence and slowing price declines. Demographic and market realities tell a more sobering story.

You won’t see a widespread housing rebound in an economy in which 600,000 jobs a month are lost and foreclosures ravage the most overleveraged areas. These are just the visible barriers to a recovery.

Mortgage lending also has been an unusually tightfisted process of late. Lenders are demanding a 20 percent deposit for home purchases and want impeccable credit ratings. About 45 percent of U.S. banks surveyed by the Federal Reserve said they had “tightened their lending standards on prime mortgages.” I suspect that number is much higher.

Then there’s the reality that the market is glutted. A record 19 million homes stood empty at the end of 2008.

via Market realities mean rebound is years away | Richmond Times-Dispatch.