Housing Market Still Not Healthy

Story first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Sales of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in more than a year, indicating that the U.S. housing market remains under strain despite some modest signs of improvement.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that sales dropped 7.1 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000 units. That followed a 7.3 percent increase in sales in February. This figure was revised up from an initial estimate that February sales had fallen 1.6 percent.

The weakness in March could reflect that a warmer-than-normal winter caused sales that normally occur at the start of the spring sales season in March to occur in February instead.

The median sales price was $234,500 in March, down 1 percent from the February price.

Sales of new homes stand at just about half the roughly 700,000-a-year pace that analysts consider evidence of a healthy market.

The supply of unsold new homes fell to just 144,000 in March — the fewest on records dating to 1963. The supply has been falling over the past two years as builders have cut back on construction.

An economist at Barclays Research, said that the low inventory level should trigger a moderate pickup in housing construction in coming months and provide some support to the economy.

Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell 2.6 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.48 million units. For previously owned homes, economists consider a healthy annual sales rate to be roughly 6 million.

The sales declines in March were led by a 27 percent drop in the West. Sales in the Midwest fell 20 percent. New-home sales rose 7.7 percent in the Northeast and 3.1 percent in the South.

A separate report on home prices showed that home prices dropped in February in most major U.S. cities for a sixth straight month. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index shows that prices dropped in February from January in 16 of the 20 cities it tracks.

Though new homes represent less than 10 percent of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics compiled by the Realtors.

A key reason for weak sales in the new-home market is that builders must compete with foreclosures and short sales. (Short sales occur when lenders allow homes to be sold for less than what's owed on the mortgage.)

About half of the states reported sharp increases in foreclosure activity in February. The pace of foreclosures is rising now that states have reached settlements with the nation's five biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses.

Builders have stopped working on many projects because it's been hard to get financing and to compete with cheaper resale homes.


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More Short Sales

First appeared in USA Today

Lenders are allowing more short sales by financially strapped homeowners and a few people are even getting cash to complete the sale. Such is the case with Durham Short Sales.

Short sales are when lenders allow borrowers to sell homes for less than their unpaid mortgages. They are an alternative to foreclosures.

Short sales have been increasing for months, but the financial incentives — which Realtors say are random and infrequent — are a newer wrinkle. Those who care about Brooklyn Home Insurance are paying attention.

Examples:

·         JPMorgan Chase went national with short-sale incentive offers last year, paying up to $35,000 in some cases.

·         Bank of America is testing incentives from $5,000 to $25,000 in Florida to see if they should be expanded to more states. The Florida program began last fall, spokesman Richard Simon says.

·         Wells Fargo's incentive offers range from less than $3,000 to $20,000, spokesman James Hines says.

Short sales, even with incentive payments to borrowers, can save lenders money compared with the expenses involved in completing foreclosures. This is true of Triangle Homes for Sale Foreclosures.

In states such as Florida where foreclosures go through the courts, 50% of loans in foreclosure are more than two years past due, says a January report by mortgage tracker LPS Applied Analytics.

"It's a lot cheaper to shell out $10,000 or $20,000 to someone than it is to go through a long foreclosure," says Jim Gillespie, chief executive of Coldwell Banker.

Banks are more willing to do short sales now than in the past, Gillespie says. Cash incentives appear to be "limited but increasing" in number, he adds.

"When a loan modification isn't possible, a short sale may be a better and faster solution" than foreclosure, says JPMorgan Chase spokesman Thomas Kelly.

The lenders won't say how often they extend such incentives. Those in Cary Short Sales are curious, though.

"If you have two similar sellers, one might get it and another may not," says Colleen Badagliacco of Altera Real Estate in San Jose. "It's very random."

Typically, short sale incentives are more common for loans in states where foreclosures take more time, Hines says.

In November, short sales accounted for more than 9% of single family home sales and were up 32% from the year before, according to CoreLogic.

Market researcher Dataquick also shows short sales increasing from January 2011 through last month throughout California and in Phoenix, Miami and Seattle.

The federal government-run foreclosure prevention program also offers short sale incentives, at least $3,000 for sellers, but far more short sales are being done outside the government program.

Through December, just 26,901 short sales had been completed through the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative (HAFA) program. A Raleigh Real Estate Lawyer is curious.

In contrast, BofA, the largest servicer of home loans, did 107,000 short sales last year. That was up from 92,000 in 2010, which was double the 2009 volume, it says.

"The trend is up," says Moody's Investors Service analyst William Fricke.