Market Should Be 'Near Normal' in the Spring

Housing industry consultant John Burns says low mortgage
rates and the home buyer tax credit, plus the availability of FHA loans – “the new subprime,” as he calls it – will
combine to keep housing transaction levels at “near normal” through Spring 2010.

First-time homebuyers are about the half the market, he says, while the expansion of the housing tax credit will get
senior buyers “off the fence” and buying retirement properties.

What would have happened if Congress hadn’t extended the tax credit? “I think we would see housing crater,” Burns said.

Burns clients include home builders, lenders, and equity invrstors.

Source: the Wall Street Journal, Nick Timiraos (11/18/2009)

Foreclosures Decline for Third Month

Foreclosures were filed on 332,292 U.S. properties in October, a decrease of 3 percent from September, but still up nearly 19 percent from October 2008, according to foreclosure sales site RealtyTrac.

October marks the third-straight month of declines in foreclosures, which many see as an encouraging sign that the worst of the foreclosures are behind us. Still, some skeptics predict another wave. “The real issue is we don’t know what inventory banks are holding that they have yet to put on the market,” said Stephen Miller, chair of the economics department at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, during an interview with Bloomberg News.

States with the highest foreclosure rates are Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland and Utah.

Four states accounted for 52 percent of the nation’s total foreclosure activity in October: California, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan. The rest of the states in the top 10 for actual numbers of foreclosures were Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, and New Jersey.

Source: RealtyTrac (11/12/2009)