While we all are watching the Obama housing recovery act be debated, the Federal Reserve met (ed. that reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned) and were less than optimistic on the state of the residential housing market.
The general feeling is that real estate is not even in range of a bottom. With new home sales, permits, and non foreclosure sales still weak, the Federal Reserve is not ready to promote anything that would resemble optimism for residential real estate.
As for residential housing, “Participants saw no indication that the housing sector was beginning to stabilize,” the minutes say. “Though sales of existing homes appeared to have flattened out, a large fraction of those transactions seemed to have resulted from foreclosures or other forced sales; moreover, new home sales, housing starts, and permits all continued to decline steeply. Lower house prices and mortgage rates had increased housing affordability, but concerns that house prices may fall further appeared to be holding back potential buyers.” via Los Angeles Times.
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Nero fiddling???? Dueling Banjos down the river and guess where we end up taking it!
More good news … just what we need! I honestly believe that a meaningful recovery may not be in force until 2012. I think we will see some run-ups here and there but I think the curve will mostly flat for the next few years.
Having an economic stimulus package with plenty of pork certainly doesn't help matters. I thought America voted for change!
Federal Reserve hasn't been exactly on top of lot of things lately. Why would their musings hold water this time around. The mortgage and real estate markets are struggling, no question, but resales in many areas, like Las Vegas, are starting to pick up, largely thanks to low prices. And Fannie Mae just eased up on its requirement how many mortgages it'll buy from investors, it went from 4 to 10. These are encouraging signs.
Change? The only change we got was the decision to have our pork baked or fried. The thing I don’t understand is why do they say new home start-ups and permiting is off or weak. They really need to say it is zero or non-existent in many counties. Obama….I mean Nero, is going to continue to fiddle while we struggle through this mess. The more facts that come out regarding this economic stimulus package make it look more and more useless.
-200 million to rehabilitate the national mall????
-276 million to fix computer systems in the state dept??
-650 million to repair Forest service facilities???
How is this garbage going to stimulate the economy and our housing markets?
I've been a licensed RE agent here in the Phoenix, AZ area since 1984. And although you won't see this in the media, most RE professionals here think that we HAVE turned a corner in housing sales. Here are the comparative figures for January sales of homes less than $400,000 for the last few years. These figures are courtesy of the Arizona Multiple Listing Service for Maricopa County.
January 2005 4,597
January 2006 3,181
January 2007 2,616
January 2008 1,863
January 2009 4,285
Yes, you are reading it right. Last month's sales are more than DOUBLE the year before! And in the retirement areas, the Sun Cities, for instance, you really have to hunt for a while to find a For Sale sign.
Arizona lead the way in the housing crash, and it will lead the way in the recovery. Of course, we may get cut off at the knees by Washington, but so far this year, it's looking up. Seriously!
There are some great buys to be had!