The Archives
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03.11.09Is now a good time to be a landlord?Last month, the delinquency rate for mortgages was at an all-time high, with one out of eight homeowners either late or in foreclosure. Across the country, home values have dropped on average anywhere between 8 and 30 percent. And in Atlanta, prices have fallen 12.1 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. For some, that paints a pretty bleak picture of the housing market. But for others, it looks like a time of great opportunity. Why? Because, compared to their recent values, houses are cheap, and investors looking to hold rental properties for the long term are finding better and better ...
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01.26.09Existing home sales show surprising monthly gainNationwide existing-home sales surprisingly jumped 5.6 percent in December, according to the National Association of Realtors. Still, the rate was 3.5 percent below December 2007. Fueling the unexpected jump in sales was a plunge in home prices, which have fallen 15.3 percent. Sales really picked up in the West and South regions, suggesting that buyers are picking up foreclosed properties and discounted prices. Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the NAR, has recently stated that foreclosures and short sales make up between 35 and 40 percent of all sales. In the South, existing-home sales rose 7.4 percent from November, but remained 11.2 percent below ...
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06.26.08Existing home sales rise nationwide, fall in SouthSales of existing single-family residential properties edged up higher across the country in May according to the latest report by the National Association of Realtors. It was only the second time in ten months that sales have increased. The pace of home sales rose 2 percent in May from April, though sales are still lagging 15.9 percent from last year’s levels. Overall, sales are down 31 percent from their peak in 2005. The median sales price for existing homes was $208,600.00, down 6.3 percent from a year ago. In the South, sales fell 0.5 percent from last month to a level 17.0 percent below ...
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06.25.08S&P/Case-Shiller shows continuing declines in Atlanta home pricesHome prices are continuing to fall, according to the latest report of the S&P/Case-Shiller indices. The data, good through April, show that prices in the 10-city index fell 16.3 percent from last year. The 20-city index fell 15.3 percent, also a new record low. Home prices in Atlanta continued their slide, dropping 0.1% from last month to a level 7.5% below that of last year. It is the seventh straight month of annual negative returns for the city. Still, it could be much worse: Las Vegas and Miami continue to be the weakest markets in the country, with prices in Las Vegas dropping ...
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06.13.08Foreclosures rise 48% on yearFrom Reuters: U.S. home foreclosure filings in May increased from April and were a whopping 48 percent higher than a year earlier, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Friday. Home foreclosure filings in May totaled 261,255, up 7 percent from April, RealtyTrac, an online market of foreclosed properties, said in its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The figure is a total of default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. "May was the third straight month where we've seen a month-to-month increase in foreclosure activity and the 29th straight month we've seen a year-over-year increase," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, ...
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06.01.08Banks miss an easy housing fixFrom CNN: Banks say they want to help troubled homeowners, but they are delaying deals that could save everyone - including the lenders themselves - a lot of time and money. Lenders are taking much longer than necessary to approve short sales, according to Duane LeGate, of House Buyers Network, a short sale specialist. In a short sale, a homeowner who cannot keep up with their loan asks the lender to take a dollar amount less than what is owed on a home’s mortgage, and forgive the remainder of the unpaid debt. So if a borrower has a mortgage balance of $100,000 and ...