2008 Real Estate Predictions

Case Shiller Shows 15.4 Decline in 2nd Quarter, 2008

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The new numbers are out in the Case Shiller Index and continue to indicate the market is still in decline. What is encouraging is that the rate of decline is slowing and that we may be approaching the bottom. [...]

26Aug2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Housing Magazines Dropping Like Flies

The market for home improvement magazines is either horribly over saturated or the market for them is evaporating.
Home Magazine just announced that the plug is being pulled on them. In the past year House and Garden and Martha Stewart’s Blueprint both shut their doors, now with Home Magazine this officially makes a trend.
Not [...]

21Aug2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Top 10 Most Expensive States For Closing Costs

When buying or selling a home participants always get nervous that they are going to be taken advantage of with mystery fees or excessive closing costs. The costs associated with a transaction of this magnitude are not to be trifled with.
So the annual survey by Bankrate.com of the costs to close a $200,000 loan [...]

19Aug2008 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

The Woes Of Realtors In Todays Market

USA Today has a long article on the problems real estate agents are facing in the slow market. It goes into great detail on how some real estate agents are struggling.
Of course, the same article could be written on how some agents are doing amazing well through the downturn. But struggling agents makes better [...]

7Aug2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Is The New Housing Bill The Antidote Homebuilders Needed?

The new federal housing bill offers a little to everyone hurt by the downturn. There is a boon to lenders, another to borrowers, and something for the homebuilders.
But while the lenders and borrowers still have some uncertainty in their future, homebuilders have suffered most of their pain already. With stock prices down nearly 75 percent [...]

1Aug2008 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

20 City Case Shiller May 2008 Analysis

The Case Shiller number are out and for some of the cities it looks rough, but you can see a base forming in some of the lesser hit cities in the country.
You will see across the news today how Miami is down 7 percent in a month and the top 10 cities in the index are down nearly 17 percent [...]

29Jul2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

JD Powers Survey Shows 28 Percent Use Internet To Find An Agent

While nearly half of all buyers and sellers still find their real estate agents through referrals, I was amazed to see that the internet provided 28 percent of the engagements for agents. The JD Powers survey used 3,205 respondents who bought or sold a home in the past year so the numbers should be statistically [...]

28Jul2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Federal Bill Will Provide Incentive To 2nd Lienholders To Allow Refinance

While I am still not thrilled with the 300 billion dollar housing bill working it’s way through Congress, they did insert some logic into the process. The bill is designed to help out the lenders and homeowners that are underwater on their loans.
But the reality is that most of these loans were financed 80–20, [...]

25Jul2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

A 4.8% Drop in Home Prices For May, 2008

Housing prices dropped 4.8 percent in May from the previous year according to the Office of Federal Housing Oversight. The most severe hit occurred out west where housing prices fell 14.5 percent while prices actually rose in the West South Central region of the country (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana).
What does this mean? Overall the [...]

24Jul2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Japan’s Zephyr Co Collapses, Sparks Commercial Real Estate Fears

The credit issues that we face in the United States are being mirrored in Japan. Zephyr Co., a midsized developer in Japan, went under yesterday. While that would not make much of a wave in the U.S., Japan’s central bank tends not to let businesses like this fail. But with the credit crunch happening world wide, [...]

22Jul2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued