Sellers of existing homes in Palm Beach County found relief in the new year when plummeting prices leveled in January after 2006 ended with three consecutive months of double-digit declines.

The county’s median price last month was $388,000, down just $5,700 or about 1 percent from $393,700 a year ago, the Florida Association of Realtors said Tuesday. The January median increased $19,800 over December’s $368,200.

Still, it will take time for South Florida’s housing market to rebound, and it could be years before it comes close to the windfall that was 2000 to 2005, experts say.

“I’m reluctant to say we’ve hit bottom yet,” said David Levin, a Delray Beach housing consultant. “I’m still concerned about the overall affordability issue. Prices are still not low enough for the average person.”

Mike Halleran, 52, who is buying a home in Boca Raton, said many of the properties on the market are overpriced by at least 10 percent.

Another buyer, Melissa Rutherford, 35, of Boynton Beach, agrees. She and her fiancé plan to wait awhile longer because they think prices will keep falling. Read more

Post this to:

                                            

In the wake of a tough couple of weeks that have rattled the sub-prime lending industry, Freddie Mac announced on Tuesday that it was cracking down on underwriting standards for those loans it purchases.

The mortgage giant announced that it will cease purchasing subprime mortgages that “have a high likelihood of excessive payment shock and possible foreclosure.” Any subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) or mortgage-related securities backed by subprime loans that Freddie will purchase must have been underwritten to qualify borrowers at the fully-indexed and full amortization rates. The goal, Freddie said, is to protect future borrowers from the payment shock that could occur when their interest rates adjust. Read more

Post this to:

                                            

After a December dose of optimism, Broward County’s housing market backpedaled to start 2007.

The county had 458 sales of existing homes last month, down 17 percent from 552 in January 2006, the Florida Association of Realtors said Tuesday. The median price was $364,500, off 2 percent, or $6,000, from $370,500 a year ago.

South Florida’s housing market remains unsettled, and it could be years before it comes close to the windfall that was 2000 to 2005, analysts said.

“The market is trying to find a bottom, and it could take awhile,” said David Dabby, a Coral Gables real estate analyst. “I don’t see any significant appreciation in prices for at least a few years to come.” Read more

Post this to:

                                            

It’s the first time in 10 years that the Orange County median did not post a gain from the year before.If Orange County real estate market were a state, its name would be Kansas: Flat as a pancake, with no end in sight.

For the first time in a decade, the median price of an Orange County home failed to post a gain from the year before, falling to $600,000 in January, market tracker DataQuick Information Systems reported Wednesday.

That’s the first time since November 1996 – or the first time in 122 months – that the median price did not increase from the prior year.

It also was the sixth month-to-month price drop since the median hit a record high of $642,500 in June, and was the lowest median in a year. The median price is the midpoint of all sales, with half the homes selling for more and half selling for less.

Experts differed about whether the market has hit bottom, but no one expects significant price drops.

“I think this year, month-to-month, we’re going to be bumping along in percentage changes,” said Walter Hahn, a consultant and real estate economist in Irvine. “Some months it’s going to be slightly negative, some months it’s going to be slightly positive. But I don’t see any big decrease.”

Meanwhile, sales also continued to lag, with just 2,400 homes trading hands last month. That’s the lowest number of sales number since January 1996. Since 1988, Orange County averaged 2,737 home sales in January.

Hahn predicted prices and sales will start edging up by the end of 2007. Jobs remain plentiful, the population still is growing and speculators, who had been forced to dump properties at a loss, have been “pretty much wrung out of the market,” he said.

Indeed, prices may already be in negative territory since DataQuick’s figures don’t reflect the concessions – such as kitchen upgrades or free closing costs – homebuilders are offering new home buyers in lieu of cutting their recorded prices.

Home sales were down across Southern California in January, and prices continued to be below year-ago prices in San Diego real estate and Ventura ca real estate. Orange County appears to be on the verge of a negative annual price change, with no appreciation for the first time in a decade. Read more

Post this to:

                                            

The presence of a nurturing art community is often a good sign that a community is vibrant in other ways, according to BusinessWeek.com and Sperling’s Best Places, which collected a list of the best places for artists in the United States. In compiling the list, they identified the metro areas with the highest concentrations of artistic establishments.
Read the rest of this entry »

Post this to:

                                            

Sales of existing homes rose in January, reaching the highest level in seven months, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^®.

Total existing-home sales — including single family, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops — increased 3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million units in January from an upwardly revised pace of 6.27 million in December. Sales were 4.3 percent below the 6.75 million-unit level in January 2006.

David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, says observers shouldn’t overreact to the sales gain or to other short-term effects. “Although we’re expecting existing-home sales to gradually rise this year, and buyers are responding to the price correction, some unusually warm weather helped boost sales in January,” he says. “On the flip side, the winter storms that disrupted so much of the country in February could negatively impact the housing market. Read more

Post this to:

                                            

In an attempt to solve one of the state’s highest-profile problems — high property taxes — the Florida House of Representatives this week proposed eliminating property taxes in favor of a higher state sales tax.

The plan would leave millions of Floridians without a property tax bill, but would require everyone, including tourists, to pay a statewide sales tax rate of 8.5 percent, the highest in the United States.

The increased sales tax would generate an estimated $7.78 billion in the first year and would be shared among local governments and school districts. A distribution formula has not yet been developed.  Read more

Post this to:

                                            

Norman Garcia wonders how people in his line of work will be able to handle a new tax.

Garcia, 28, is an instructor at the Florida Culinary Institute. And like many in South Florida’s hospitality industry, he is a renter.

“They want to push the tourism industry, but how can the young people who work in the industry live with these rents and taxes?” asked Garcia, who shares a two-bedroom apartment on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach with a roommate for $1,350 a month. “The pay isn’t great. For about six months of the year, when it’s in the season, there’s work. The rest of the year, you might work 25 hours a week.” Read more

Post this to:

                                            

Thirty year fixed-rate mortgages declined this week to an average of 6.22 percent, down from 6.30 percent last week and 6.26 percent a year earlier, Freddie Mac reports.

“Mortgage rates eased a little more this week, as market participants were concerned over how much drag the slowing housing market may have on economic growth,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. “Last week’s release of housing starts for January showed the weakest reading since August 1997 due to the abundance of homes on the market.”

Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending Feb. 22 shows that 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.97 percent, down 6.03 percent last week and 5.89 percent a year ago. Read more

Post this to:

                                            

The mortgage industry and those who regulate it appear well on their way to dramatically changing the mortgage licensing system.

On Tuesday the Mortgage Bankers Association announced its support of the basic underpinnings of a proposed Residential Mortgage Licensing System (RMLS) that it is hoped will make the regulatory system more efficient and uniform for states and for mortgage lenders, especially those that operate in multiple states. This system is designed to provide a database for regulators, lenders, and consumers and will consolidate functions that previously have been managed on a state-by-state basis and frequently handled by hand and monitored through paper records.  Read more

Post this to: