Sarah Reinhart

Today's news that may be of interest to you:

Long Road Ahead for Housing Recovery
Chicago Tribune | June 14, 2010
It would be a stretch to see 13 as a lucky number for the real estate market, but for those who need something to hang on to, 2013 might be the year housing finally claws its way out of the doldrums.

Is a Housing Shortage Coming?
CNNMoney | June 15, 2010
As the nation struggles to shrug off the worst housing crash since the Great Depression, it may be hard to believe a housing shortage could be on its way.

US Commercial Real Estate Gains Strength
Reuters | June 14, 2010
The collapse of the U.S. commercial real estate bubble will not be as crushing as many had anticipated, a top executive for real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle Inc (JLL.N) said on Monday at the Reuters Global Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit in New York.

From the National Association of Realtors®:

NAR Addresses Workforce Housing Issues
The National Association of REALTORS(R) has partnered with the National Housing Conference to discuss regional affordable housing strategies.

Jobs Key to Housing Recovery
A new Harvard study says low mortgage rates coupled with employment growth will improve the housing market.

Builders Rush to Meet Tax Credit Deadline
Home builders are hiring more construction workers to help get homes built in time for buyers to close by the June 30 deadline.

Top 10 Real Estate Search Terms in May
Web metrics firm Experian Hitwise reports that Realtor.com received the most real estate search traffic last month. See which terms were most commonly searched.

June 6, 2010

Interest Rates Rates were stable at very low levels in the past week. Freddie Mac announced that for the week ending June 3, 30-year fixed rates averaged 4.79%, up slightly from 4.78% the previous week. The average for 15-year fixed fell slightly to 4.20%. "The economy grew at a slower rate than originally reported in the first three months of the year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which suggests inflation will remain tame in the near term," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "As a result, rates held at historic levels this week. In fact, rates on 15-year fixed-rate loans set another record low for the third week in a row. There are also signs that credit conditions may be improving. The number of homeowners with private mortgage insurance who became current on their loans outnumbered those who defaulted for the third month in a row in April, according to data compiled by the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America." Forecast for the Week

Today's news that may be of interest to you:

The Right Time for REIT's?
Bloomberg Businessweek | June 3, 2010
The June 5 acquisition of Trizec Properties demonstrates that private investors still see upside potential in office-building rents. (Anthony's note: another good article on the subject is It Might Be the Right Time for REITs, from Y!News)

What Tax Credit Did for Market
The Philadelphia Inquirer | June 6, 2010
Economist Patrick Newport recently described home sales as riding "a two-hill roller coaster" because of the now-expired tax credits.

U.S. Banks' Foreclosure Holdings Increased 12.5% in Q1: Report
DS News | June 7, 2010
Foreclosed property held by U.S. banks increased 12.5 percent to $41.5 billion during the first quarter of this year, according to a recent analysis by SNL Financial, a financial market research firm out of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lawmakers May Sacrifice Swaps Plan for Volcker Rule in Talks
BusinessWeek | June 7, 2010
Congressional negotiators meeting to resolve differences over bank-regulation legislation are likely to retain a proprietary-trading ban and higher capital standards while stripping a measure that would bar commercial lenders from running swaps desks, said lawmakers and analysts.

The 20-Year Mortgage Alternative
The New York Times | June 6, 2010
Most people who took out jumbo mortgages during the financial crisis got hit with high interest rates as lenders and investors recoiled from anything that seemed even remotely risky.

Point and Find Commercial Real Estate with new iPhone App
San Francisco Chronicle | May 21, 2010
Is there anything the iPhone can't do? It's certainly true to say that every day sees the arrival of a new app that promises to transform your life. And the technology that makes these gizmos work is certainly impressive. (Anthony's note: This app looks amazing and is worth reading about).

From the National Association of Realtors®:

Feb 8th, 2010 Interest Rates Update-

Rates continued to be stable in the past week. Freddie Mac announced that for the week ending February 4, 30-year fixed rates averaged 5.01%, up from 4.98% the week before. The average for 15-year fixed rose slightly to 4.40%. "Rates remained relatively stable for a second week amid news of a strengthening housing market," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "Residential fixed investment rose for two consecutive quarters over the last half of 2009 following a steady quarterly decline since the beginning of 2006. Pending existing home sales rebounded by 1 percent in December from a record drop in November that was due in part to the original expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, according to the National Association of Realtors. Even more encouraging news came from the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, which reported that banks have generally stopped tightening standards on most types of loans in the fourth quarter of 2009, with commercial real estate as the exception."

Feb 8, 2010 Market Update

Last Week in Review...Not super pretty....not super period! Change, anyone?

"BOTH OPTIMISTS AND PESSIMISTS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR SOCIETY. THE OPTIMIST INVENTS THE AIRPLANE, AND THE PESSIMIST - THE PARACHUTE." G.B. Stern. And last week's Jobs Report had something for both optimists and pessimists, as the numbers were both good and bad...depending on which survey you looked at, and what numbers you focused on. The job market lost 820,000 jobs last month. Well not exactly last month. This number included the "adjustment of statistics" for the past year. In this column we will not get into how the government miscounts so badly. However, we will point out that it just makes the deep recession we are coming out of even deeper. Eventually we must replace all of these jobs and we have dug ourselves quite a hole to climb out of. Certainly this makes the jobs programs proposed by the Administration more likely to become law as the next phase of stimulus kicks into gear. And certainly, the fact that there would be such a significant adjustment is one reason the stock market became so volatile this week.

Thursday was particularly brutal, especially when we mixed in concerns about the debt of foreign governments. When you remove this big adjustment, the numbers for January were not all that bad. The loss of 20,000 jobs is not positive, but it still is much better than the hundreds of thousands of jobs we were losing just a few quarters ago. However, it is still a long way from recovering from seven million jobs lost. This does help by way of the fact that it takes some of the upward pressure off of rates, oil prices and other commodities, at least in the short-run. ----------------------- Another important note for the week - Pending Home Sales for December were up significantly from November's reading, and up a healthy 10.9% over December 2008, as homebuyers take advantage of today's low rates and tax incentives. And speaking of low home loan rates, the Federal Reserve purchased $12 billion in Mortgage Backed Securities last week, bringing the total to $1.173 trillion since the program began in January of 2009...which leaves just $77 billion in purchases to be made over the next eight weeks until the program ends on March 31st. While home loan rates improved very slightly during this volatile week - don't forget that when the Fed is done buying, home loan rates will be very susceptible to moving higher.