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RISMEDIA, February 27, 2010—(MCT)—The good news is, it’s a buyers’ market. The bad news is, it’s a buyers’ market. From the rubble of the housing collapse has arisen a seemingly endless supply of houses from which to choose. Good news if you’re buyer. Challenging news if you’re a seller. Mixed news if you’re a Realtor.

The extension of the home buyers’ credit is expected to spur an increase in sales during the first quarter of 2010, normally the slowest quarter of the year, said Gary Walter, executive vice president of the Southwestern Michigan Association of Realtors Inc.

With competitive prices, low interest rates and a huge tax credit on their side, buyers are jumping off the fence. And if you’ve got a house to sell, there are things you can do to make sure they land on your side, Realtors say.

“If you’re looking around your house and you ask yourself: ‘Should I paint this room?’ you probably should,” said Ryan Arnt, associate president of Meredith and Kamp Realtors of Stevensville.

Another piece of advice from area Realtors—be reasonable about the price. And be flexible. “If you’re going to list your house, it’s going to disrupt your lifestyle pattern for awhile. You’ll need to be willing to show at a moment’s notice, be as agreeable and as flexible as possible, and put a little effort into it. The return will be worth it,” said Sharon Halliburton, broker associate with American Homes of Stevensville. She and other area Realtors say the worst is over. “I’m extremely optimistic. We’ve turned a corner,” Halliburton said.

National picture
After a surge last year from September through November, the original deadline for a $8,000 tax credit, existing home sales nationally fell in December 2009. But prices rose from December 2008 and sales overall improved in 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors.

For all of 2009, there were 5.1 million existing home sales, 4.9% higher than the 4.9 million transactions recorded in 2008, the first annual sales gain since 2005.

On the other hand, in Southwest Michigan, residential sales totaled just over $381.6 million in 2009, down 18% from nearly $465.9 million in 2008. It was the area’s third consecutive year of decline in the real estate market.

The number of single-family homes sold in 2009 was within 1% of the number sold in 2008, but the average selling price, $151,190, was down 18%. The median selling price of $93,550 was down 22% from 2008. Total closed sales, including single-family and multi-family houses, vacant land and commercial property, also dropped 18%, from $516.43 million in 2008 to just over $422.2 million in 2009.

In Southwest Michigan, Walter said prices have been influenced by the percentage of bank-owned homes on the market. He said that between May and November 2009, bank-owned houses accounted for about 35% of the total unit sales. In December that figure climbed to 45%.

Arnt said he’s not quick to steer potential buyers to bank-owned listings. “Most of the banks are willing to negotiate, and that brings down the price. But I typically tell my folks that if somebody couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage, what else haven’t they been able to keep up about the house? There’s more risk. You have to be willing to gamble,” he said.

But Art Atilla, a Realtor working primarily in St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, said there’s a reason the average number of days on the market in Benton Harbor in 2009 was 91, down 11% from 2008 and the quickest turn-around time in Southwest Michigan last year. “There’s a greater number of repossessed homes in Benton Harbor, and those are being sold off quickly because investors can pick them up for $15,000 to $30,000, depending on the location,” he said. “Is it better to have empty houses owned by banks, or have an investor buy it, clean it up and get it going? The best thing would be a for a family to buy it. But these houses need to be bought by somebody.”

Economists say the market is going through swings driven by the tax credit. The extension of the tax credit is expected to spur an increase in sales during the first quarter of 2010, normally the slowest quarter of the year. The extension gives buyers until April 30 to buy and until June 30 to close. The credit, up to $8,000, originally was for first-time buyers only, but has been extended to include homeowners who have lived in their home for five of the last 8 years. These people get up to $6,500. Extension of the tax credit adds more potential buyers to the market.

By early summer, the market should benefit from a more balanced inventory, leading to an overall rise in sales in 2010, economists say.

Jobs, jobs, jobs
But a lot could depend on the job market. Realtors say job creation is the key to a continued recovery in the housing market.

Once the home buyer tax credit ends at the end of April, and if mortgage rates rise after March, will the market be in trouble again? Since most of the fuel to the housing market in 2009 was provided by the government, does the market remain too fragile for the government help to end? Arnt predicts the government will let the tax credit expire, then launch some other incentive down the road. That might be a good thing, he said. “I think they announced too early that they were going to extend it, without letting the original one expire. There were people on the fence who didn’t get off because they heard the credit was going to be extended,” he said.

Arnt is optimistic about the housing market’s future. “Personally, I feel very confident. I think the worst is over. I think we definitely have bottomed out, and things are looking very positive. There’s buyer activity that wasn’t there 30-60 days ago.” Arnt said potential buyers are breathing a sigh of relief, having made it through the holidays with their jobs intact. “I think people are more comfortable and feel that the market has been through the worst and is on the way to recovery,” he said.

Realtors are hoping that a shrinking inventory will help improve the average sales price. The December 2009 inventory dropped 7% from December 2008. In Southwest Michigan, there are 2,803 houses listed, which equates to a 13.3-month supply. That is down from a 16.5-month supply in November 2009 and a 14.1-month supply in December 2009.

National figures for January showed an inventory of 3.29 million existing homes, 11.1% below a year ago and 28.2% below the record of 4.58 million in July 2008. Nationally, the median home price in December 2009 was $178,300, 1.5% higher than in December 2008. Economists said that was due to an increased number of mid- to upper-priced houses in the mix.

Prices stabilizing
Halliburton said, after reviewing the January figures, she’s optimistic. She said that in St. Joseph and Lakeshore, there were 26 homes sold in January, a 73% jump over 15 sold last January.

The average number of days on the market for homes sold in St. Joseph and Lakeshore in January was 99, compared to 147 days a year ago. The average sales price in the same area in January was $153,648, down just $132 from a year ago.

For the entire Southwest Michigan area, she said, the average price was up 27% over a year ago. “I’m excited. These are the best numbers I’ve seen in a long time,” Halliburton said. “I’ve been listing at least one house a week since the first of the year. My spring starts in February, marketing-wise.”

To sell your house, she said, it’s got to look better than everybody else’s on the block. “Work on curb appeal outside. Inside, de-clutter, clean, paint, all the things you’ve been meaning to clean anyway- take a third of the stuff out of every room.”

Atilla recommends “staging” a house before putting it on the market. “You get somebody with a good eye and you can cost-effectively make the home as good as it can be. Paint, rearrange furniture, add color accents, put towels in the bathroom. If you need a new roof or furnace, be honest about that in your price.”

Copyright (c) 2010, The Herald-Palladium, St. Joseph, Mich.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd., India’s fourth-biggest developer, said it plans to spin off its wholesale trading business. View full post on Yahoo! News Search Results for real estate

RISMEDIA, February 26, 2010—(MCT)—Sales of new U.S. homes plunged 11.2% in January 2010 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000, the lowest rate on record dating back to 1963, the Commerce Department recently reported.

The third-straight drop in sales on a month-to-month basis was unexpected. “The housing market remains very, very distressed,” wrote Dan Greenhaus, chief economist for Miller Tabak & Co.

“There may have been some weather-related issues playing havoc with the sales data but clearly, these results are extremely unnerving,” wrote Jennifer Lee, an economist for BMO Capital Markets. “There is nothing positive to glean from this report.”

U.S. stock markets fell after release of the report, which coincided with release of congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said the economy remains fragile and needs low interest rates for an extended period of time.

Data on sales for December 2009 were revised higher to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 348,000, up from 342,000 previously reported.

Sales of new homes are down 6.1% compared with January 2009’s 329,000 units, which was the previous record low. The number of homes for sale rose 0.4% to 234,000 in January. At the January sales pace, it would take 9.1 months to sell that inventory, up from 8.0 months in December and the highest monthly supply since May.

Government statisticians have low confidence in the monthly report, which is subject to large revisions, and large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government isn’t sure whether sales rose or fell. The standard error in January for instance, was plus or minus 14%. The government says it can take up to five months to establish a statistically significant trend in sales. Over the last five months, sales have been on a 362,000 seasonally adjusted annual pace, down from 382,000 in the five-month interval through December.

Sales had risen fairly steadily in the first half of 2009 before plateauing last fall. Seasonally adjusted sales have now fallen three months in a row.

With mortgage rates still very low and prices down, most analysts had concluded that the recent decline in sales was due to the impending expiration of the first-time home buyers’ credit in November.

As it happened, Congress extended the tax credit through June and expanded it to include repeat buyers. But the tax credit didn’t help sales in January. Sales of new homes are recorded once a sales contract is signed, not at closing. Some homes are sold before ground is broken on construction.

Details
Home builders had been slashing their inventory of unsold homes for more than a year to a 38-year low before January’s 1,000 increase. The number of homes for sale that are under construction fell to a record low of 100,000.

Builders have cut back on production of new homes, but they still face headwinds from unsold existing-homes as foreclosures continue to mount up. If a home isn’t sold before it’s finished, it’s taking a record 14.2 months to sell it after completion—a reflection of the mismatch between more expensively priced homes in the inventory and lower-priced homes that have been selling.

The median sales price of a new home sold in January was $203,500, down 2.4% compared with a year earlier. Cheaper homes were selling better than expensive ones: 47% of sales were for less than $200,000, up from 43% in December. Meanwhile, 38% of sales were for $200,000 to $400,000, down from 41% in December.

Sales were down in three of four regions: down 35% in the Northeast, down 12% in the West and down 10% in the South. January’s sales were up 2% in the Midwest, the government’s data showed.

(c) 2010, MarketWatch.com Inc.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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RISMEDIA, February 25, 2010—The percentage of households that could afford to buy an entry-level home in California remained at 64% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with 61% (revised) for the same period a year ago, according to a report released by the California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.).

C.A.R.’s First-time Buyer Housing Affordability Index (FTB-HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase an entry-level home in California. C.A.R. also reports first-time buyer indexes for regions and select counties within the state. The Index is one of the most fundamental measures of housing well-being for first-time buyers in the state.

The minimum household income needed to purchase an entry-level home at $257,940 in California in the fourth quarter of 2009 was $44,100, based on an adjustable interest rate of 4.5% and assuming a 10% down payment. First-time buyers typically purchase a home equal to 85% of the prevailing median price. The monthly payment including taxes and insurance was $1,470 for the fourth quarter of 2009.

At $44,100, the minimum qualifying income was 4% lower than a year earlier when households needed $45,900 to qualify for a loan on an entry-level home. Home prices remained below peak levels, resulting in an improvement in housing affordability compared with the previous year.

At 84%, the High Desert region was the most affordable area in the state. The San Luis Obispo County region was the least affordable in the state at 48%, followed by the San Francisco Bay region and Santa Barbara area both at 50%.

For more information, visit www.car.org.

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RISMEDIA, February 24, 2010—Family reunions are taking on a new meaning in the real estate market. According to a recent survey by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC among its network of real estate professionals, in the last 12 months, 37% of sales professionals surveyed noted an increase in home buyers looking to purchase homes to accommodate more than one generation of their family. In addition, almost 70% of Coldwell Banker sales agents believe that economic conditions may cause greater demand for multi-generational homes in their market during the next year.

Furthermore, the Coldwell Banker January 2010 survey respondents cited financial drivers as the No. 1 reason why home buyers or sellers are moving into a house with other generations of their family (39%). Twenty-nine percent said that health care issues are the primary reason, and 6% cited a strong family bond as the main factor.

“While saving money is certainly an incentive for buying a home that accommodates multiple generations, the benefits go beyond just financial reasons,” said Diann Patton, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Consumer Specialist. “With two or three generations living under one roof, families often experience more flexible schedules, quality time with one another and can better juggle childcare and eldercare.”

Communicating with family members and consulting with their real estate professional is key as well. “Talk to everyone involved and determine how comfortable the family members are about sharing bathrooms, office space or common areas, and let that guide your search,” Patton advises. “All of these topics are incredibly important in finding the right kind of home to fit the family–like one that has four bathrooms or one that has three.”

Helpful Hints:
-Sellers with “mother in-law suites” or additional spaces that could accommodate a family interested in a multi-generational living arrangement should highlight this aspect of the home. Whether it’s a garage apartment or refurbished basement, this separate space can help one home stand apart from the others on its block.

-Buyers must be clear about their exact needs. Some families may just want an extra bedroom or two for family members, while others require areas with a separate kitchen, entrance, handicap accessibility or even a larger garage for additional cars. Desired location may also be influenced by proximity to local hospitals, senior centers or other important activities to family members.

-Extended families purchasing a home together should consider signing a written contract outlining everything from finances to chores and childcare. Each family should assess their situation individually and find a plan that works best for them.

For more information, visit www.coldwellbanker.com.

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