Existing-Home Sales Rise Again in January

Washington, DC, February 23, 2011

The uptrend in existing-home sales continues, with January sales rising for the third consecutive month with a pace that is now above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

Existing-home sales¹, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million in January from a downwardly revised 5.22 million in December, and are 5.3 percent above the 5.09 million level in January 2010. This is the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the improvement is good but could be better. “The uptrend in home sales is consistent with improvements in the economy and jobs, which are helping boost consumer confidence,” Yun said. “The extremely favorable housing affordability conditions are a big factor, but buyers have been constrained by unnecessarily tight credit. As a result, there are abnormally high levels of all-cash purchases, along with rising investor activity.”

A parallel NAR practitioner survey² shows first-time buyers purchased 29 percent of homes in January, down from 33 percent in December and 40 percent in January 2010 when an extended tax credit was in place.

Investors accounted for 23 percent of purchases in January, up from 20 percent in December and 17 percent in January 2010; the balance of sales were to repeat buyers. All-cash sales rose to 32 percent in January from 29 percent in December and 26 percent in January 2010.

“Increases in all-cash transactions, the investor market share and distressed home sales all go hand-in-hand. With tight credit standards, it’s not surprising to see so much activity where cash is king and investors are taking advantage of conditions to purchase undervalued homes,” Yun said.

All-cash purchases are at the highest level since NAR started measuring these purchases monthly in October 2008, when they accounted for 15 percent of the market. The average of all-cash deals was 20 percent in 2009, rising to 28 percent last year.

The national median existing-home price³ for all housing types was $158,800 in January, down 3.7 percent from January 2010. Distressed homes edged up to a 37 percent market share in January from 36 percent in December; it was 38 percent in January 2010.

NAR President Ron Phipps, broker-president of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I., said the median price is being dampened by unusual market factors. “Unprecedented levels of all-cash purchases, primarily of distressed homes sold at deep discounts, undoubtedly pulls the median price downward,” Phipps said. “Given the levels of inventory we see today, we believe that traditional homes in good condition have held their value.”

Total housing inventory at the end of January fell 5.1 percent to 3.38 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.6-month supply⁴ at the current sales pace, down from an 8.2-month supply in December. The inventory supply is at the lowest level since December 2009 when there was a 7.3-month supply.

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage rose to 4.76 percent in January from 4.71 percent in December; the rate was 5.03 percent in January 2010.

Single-family home sales rose 2.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.69 million in January from 4.58 million in December, and are 4.9 percent higher than the 4.47 million level in January 2010. The median existing single-family home price was $159,400 in January, down 2.7 percent from a year ago.

Existing condominium and co-op sales increased 4.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 670,000 in January from 640,000 in December, and are 7.9 percent above the 621,000-unit pace one year ago. The median existing condo price⁵ was $154,900 in January, which is 10.2 percent below January 2010.

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast fell 4.6 percent to an annual pace of 830,000 in January from a spike in December and are 1.2 percent below January 2010. The median price in the Northeast was $236,500, which is 4.0 percent below a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest rose 1.8 percent in January to a level of 1.14 million and are 3.6 percent above a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $126,300, which is 3.2 percent below January 2010.

In the South, existing-home sales increased 3.6 percent to an annual pace of 2.02 million in January and are 8.0 percent higher than January 2010. The median price in the South was $136,600, down 2.1 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the West rose 7.9 percent to an annual level of 1.37 million in January and are 7.0 percent above January 2010. The median price in the West was $193,200, down 5.7 percent from a year ago.

The National Association of REALTORS®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.1 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

New Home Sales Surge

New Home Sales Surge
New single-family home sales in December rose to their highest level in eight months and prices were the highest since April 2008, raising cautious optimism for a housing market recovery.

The Commerce Department said sales jumped 17.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted 329,000 unit annual rate after a downwardly revised 280,000-unit pace in November. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales rising to a 300,000-unit pace in December from a previously reported 290,000 unit rate. Compared to December a year earlier, sales were down 7.6 percent. Overall 2010 sales dropped 14.4 percent to a 321,000-unit rate.

Economists saw the gains as significant.

"Clearly we are seeing stabilization in new home sales and this data suggests some upward momentum that we have seen in existing home sales. What is important to realize is even in a period of softer new home sales, inventory continues to decline, said Dean Maki, chief U.S.. economist with Barclays Capital in New York.

“The level of inventory is at its lowest since the 1960s," Maki said. This suggests the big declines in housing starts are now behind us and housing starts should be on a gradual trend in 2011.”

Brian Bethune, an economist with HIS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass added: "It's meaningful to the extent that there is a pattern of numbers showing increases. It's a sign that there is a turnaround. Things are definitely perking up, but there is a question whether it's sustainable.

Read the latest report from the National Association of REALTORS®: December Existing-Home Sales Jump

Source: "New Home Sales Surge in December," Reuters(Jan. 26, 2011)

Fast Facts

Fast Facts
Calif. median home price: March 2010: $301,790 (Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. highest median home price by C.A.R. region March 2010: Santa Barbara So. Coast $890,000(Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. lowest median home price by C.A.R. region March 2010: High Desert $122,970 (Source: C.A.R.)
Calif. First-time Buyer Affordability Index - Fourth Quarter 2009: 64 percent (Source: C.A.R.)
Mortgage rates - week ending 4/22/10 30-yr. fixed: 5.07 Fees/points: 0.7% 15-yr. fixed: 4.39% Fees/points: 0.6% 1-yr. adjustable: 4.22% Fees/points: 0.5% (Source: Freddie Mac)

NAR- Homes Sales on the Rise

The National Association of Realtors, in its latest economic forecast, anticipates that the nation's unemployment rate will hit 10.2 percent next year. The group also boosted its expectations for resale home prices and sales in 2010 from an earlier forecast.
In 2009, NAR expects the median price of resale homes to drop 4.9 percent compared to 2008, dipping to $188,500, before climbing 4.4 percent to $196,800 next year.
NAR's latest forecast also calls for 4.97 million resale home sales this year, a 1.1 percent rise compared to 4.91 million last year, with sales of resale homes projected to rise 6.3 percent in 2010.
In its previous forecast, released last month (see Inman News), NAR estimated that the median price of resale homes would drop 5.1 percent this year and rise 4.1 percent in 2010, and that sales of resale homes would rise 1 percent this year and climb another 5.8 percent in 2010.
NAR's affordability index, which measures how affordable homes are for households based on mortgage rates and income levels, decreased in March but remained near its record-high February level -- the index was up 30.8 percentage points from its March 2008 level.
Also Monday, the association released the Pending Home Sales Index, which is based on home-purchase contracts signed but not yet closed.
The index, for the month of March, gained 3.2 percent compared to February and was up 1.1 percent over the March 2008 index.
Regionally, the index experienced a monthly rise in the South (8.5 percent) and West (3.9 percent) regions while dropping in the Northeast (-5.7 percent) and Midwest (-1 percent). And the index rose in the Midwest (8.2 percent), South (7.7 percent) and West (1.7 percent) while plummeting in the Northeast (-24.1 percent) region in March 2009 compared to March 2008.

Bay Area home sales climb above last year as median falls below $300K

March 19, 2009
La Jolla, CA.----Bay Area home sales beat the year-ago mark for the sixth straight month in February as the winter market sizzled in many foreclosure-heavy inland areas offering the deepest discounts. The median price dipped below $300,000 for the first time since late 1999, pushed lower by an abundance of inland distressed sales and a dearth of coastal high-end activity, a real estate information service reported.
A total of 5,032 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was essentially unchanged from 5,050 in January but up 26.1 percent from 3,989 in February 2008, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego.
Last month’s sales were the fifth-lowest for a February since 1988, when DataQuick’s statistics begin, and 22 percent below the average 6,410 for the month. February sales have ranged from a low of 3,989 in 2008 to a high of 8,901 in 2002.
Only 321 newly constructed homes sold last month, down 55 percent from 713 a year ago, the lowest on record for a February, and the second-lowest for any month back to 1988. Many builders have had a difficult time competing with falling resale prices – especially foreclosures.
The allure of such discounted foreclosures helped lift sales of existing single-family houses to record levels for a February in Vallejo, Brentwood, Antioch, Pittsburg and Oakley.
The use of government-insured, FHA loans – a common choice among first-time buyers – represented a record 24.9 percent of all Bay Area purchase loans last month.
Conversely, use of so-called jumbo loans to finance high-end property remained at abnormally low levels. Before the credit crunch hit in August 2007, jumbo loans, then defined as over $417,000, represented 62 percent of Bay Area purchase loans, compared with just 17.5 percent last month.
The difficulties potential high-end buyers have had in obtaining jumbo loans helps explain why sales of existing single-family houses fell to record-low or near-record-low levels for a February in some higher-end communities. They included Orinda, Walnut Creek, San Rafael, San Francisco, Burlingame, San Mateo, Los Gatos, and Los Altos.
“A lot of Bay Area activity is basically on hold, waiting for the jumbo mortgage spigot to reopen. That could start to happen during the second quarter, although slowly. Yesterday’s move by the Federal Reserve to buy more mortgage securities could be a turning point,” said John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president.
Across the nine-county region, the median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined fell to $295,000 last month. That was down 1.7 percent from $300,000 in January and down a record 46.2 percent from $548,000 a year ago.
The February median stood at its lowest since it was $299,000 in December 1999 and was 55.6 percent below the peak median of $665,000 reached in June and July of 2007.
The median price – the point where half of the homes sold for more and half for less – has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 15 consecutive months. Its near free-fall in recent months overstates the decline in the value of the typical Bay Area home. The median’s plunge also reflects the sluggishness of high-end sales, which are now under-represented in the statistics; a shift toward more sales occurring in the less-expensive inland markets; and buyers’ preference for discounted foreclosures.
Last month 52 percent of all homes that resold in the Bay Area had been foreclosed on at some point in the prior 12 months, up from a revised 51.9 percent in January and 22.3 percent a year ago.
At the county level, foreclosure resales last month ranged from 12.1 percent of resales in San Francisco to 69.5 percent in Solano County. In the other seven counties, foreclosure resales were as follows: Alameda, 46.2 percent; Contra Costa, 65.1 percent; Marin, 18.9 percent; Napa, 63.1 percent; Santa Clara, 42.9 percent; San Mateo, 31.3 percent; and Sonoma, 57.1 percent.
San Diego-based MDA DataQuick is a division of MDA Lending Solutions, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates. MDA DataQuick monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. Because of late data availability, sales in late February were estimated in Alameda and San Mateo counties.
The typical monthly mortgage payment that Bay Area buyers committed themselves to paying was $1,286 last month, down from $1,297 the previous month, and down from $2,606 a year ago. Adjusted for inflation, current payments are 50.2 percent below typical payments in the spring of 1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. They are 63.2 percent below the current cycle's peak in July 2007.
Indicators of market distress continue to move in different directions. Foreclosure activity has waned recently but remains near record levels, while financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is near the all-time low, as is financing with multiple mortgages. Down payment sizes and flipping rates are stable. Non-owner occupied buying activity is above-average in some markets, MDA DataQuick reported.

Sales Volume
Median Price
All homes
Feb-08
Feb-09
%Chng
Feb-08
Feb-09
%Chng
Alameda
753
971
29.0%
$486,500
$290,000
-40.40%
Contra Costa
753
1,283
70.4%
$450,000
$216,500
-51.90%
Marin
136
111
-18.4%
$775,000
$573,409
-26.00%
Napa
57
88
54.4%
$525,000
$322,500
-38.60%
Santa Clara
984
1,079
9.7%
$658,000
$408,750
-37.90%
San Francisco
431
272
-36.9%
$736,000
$640,000
-13.00%
San Mateo
343
311
-9.3%
$646,500
$502,250
-22.30%
Solano
278
557
100.4%
$350,000
$195,000
-44.30%
Sonoma
254
360
41.7%
$400,000
$282,000
-29.50%
Bay Area
3,989
5,032
26.1%
$548,000
$295,000
-46.20%
Source: MDA DataQuick Information Systems, www.DQNews.com

California Home Prices Looking Steady

Median home prices in California slipped less than a half percent in March compared to February, a sign that the state’s troubled housing market is stabilizing, according to MDA Data Quick, which tracks housing prices.The firm said the market was similarly stable in January and February. "History suggests that these are the kinds of signs you see when a market is approaching stabilization in terms of pricing," Data Quick spokesman Andrew Lesage says. "Are we at the bottom? That's not clear."Source: The Associated Press, Jacob Edelman (04/16/2009)

Housing Recovery? Not This Year, Experts Say

Housing Recovery? Not This Year, Experts Say
One in every nine homes in the United States is sitting vacant, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Economists predict that getting rid of this glut nationwide will take at least three years.

Here’s the math: The number of housing units in the United States increased by 8.65 million from 2002 to 2007. During that period, the number of U.S. households rose by only 6.7 million. Subtract a half-million homes that will be torn down or lost to fire, and that leaves an excess of 1.3 million units, not including vacation homes.

The country adds about 1.5 million households every year, but the recession and a slowdown in immigration is reducing that number. Additionally, Gen Xers, most of who are within the age range when people tend to have the most children, are relatively small in number and won’t create an enormous need for larger living space.

Factor in the number of new homes being built—about 700,000 this year, according to Arthur C. Nelson, director of the University of Utah’s Metropolitan Research Center— and the bottom line is a multi-year recovery.

As Robert Lang, head of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, puts it, "Population is still growing, and sooner or later, you'll want to move out of relatives' basements."

Utah’s Nelson analyzed government and private housing data and predicts that hard-hit housing markets in the West and South will start to bounce back later this year and during the first half of 2010. The Northeast and Midwest will have the slowest comeback, possibly extending beyond 2012, he says.

Source: USA Today, Hava El Nasser (09/10/2009)

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show continued declines

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show continued declines

Nationwide, prices of existing, single-family homes showed continued declines in January, with 13 of the 20 metro areas showing record rates of annual decline, and 14 reporting declines in excess of 10 percent compared with January 2008, according to the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

“Home prices, which peaked in mid-2006, continued their decline in 2009,” says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index committee at Standard & Poor’s. “There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with all of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and nine of the MSAs falling more than 20 percent in the last year.”

As of January 2009, average home prices across the United States are at level similar to those in late 2003.

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Existing-Home sales up in Feb. 09

Sales of existing homes rose 5.1 percent from January to February, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million units, the National Association of Realtors reported today.

Distressed sales accounted for 40 to 45 percent of transactions, and total housing inventory grew 5.2 percent, to 3.8 million existing homes for sale.

At the current pace of sales, that's a 9.7-month supply of homes, unchanged from January but down from the record of 11.2 months seen in July. A six-month supply of housing is generally seen as a healthy balance between supply and demand.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $165,400 in February, down 15.5 percent from a year ago. The median home price was pushed down by sales of distressed homes, which are selling for 20 percent less than normal market price, said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

The median condominium price was down 18.2 percent from a year ago, to $172,200, and sales of existing condos and co-ops were up 11.4 percent from January, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 490,000 units. Looking back a year, condo sales were down 13.1 percent.

The median existing single-family home price was down 15 percent from a year ago, to $164,600, and sales rose 4.4 percent from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.23 million units. That's 3.6 percent below the pace of sales a year ago.

Regionally, California saw a strong gain in sales, with the median listing price on the rise for the first time in three years.

Existing-home sales in the West increased 2.6 percent from January to February, to an annual rate of 1.2 million, but were down 30.4 percent increase from a year ago. The West has also seen the greatest year-over-year price declines, with median price falling 30.3 percent from a year ago, to $204,600.

In the Northeast, sales were up 15.6 percent from January to an annual pace of 740,000, but are down 14.9 percent from a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $251,200, down 4.8 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest increased 1 percent from January to an annual pace of 1.04 million, down 14 percent from a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $131,000, down 7.8 percent from a year ago.

In the South, existing-home sales rose 6.1 percent from January to an annual pace of 1.74 million, but were down 11.2 percent from a year ago. The median price in the South was $146,700, down 10 percent from a year ago.

***

Commerce: New-home Sales See Rise in February

Commerce: New-home Sales See Rise in February

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that new-home sales rose 4.7 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000, up from a revised January figure of 322,000.

The January rate was the worst since records were first kept in 1963, and yesterday’s report was actually better than most economists feared it would be

The report is "another faint but nonetheless encouraging sign that the economic slide may be moderating," wrote David Resler, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities.

At the current sales pace, the government estimated that it would take a year to exhaust the inventory of new homes on the market.

Source: The Associated Press, Alan Zibel (03/25/2009)

Home Prices Edged up in January

Home Prices Edged up in January
Home prices rose 1.7 percent in January, up for the first time in 10 months, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which only reports prices for conforming properties with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Many analysts were skeptical about the results because the report excludes expensive homes with subprime loans and jumbo mortgages.

The government did note that sales numbers in January were low and that could skew the results.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department is expected to report today that new home sales fell in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 300,000 units from 309,000 units in January. This is the lowest level since 1963.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Kelly Evans and the Associated Press (03/25/2009)