Posted on 09/26/2011 7:44:13 AM PDT by Free Vulcan
Sales dropped 2.3% last month to an annual rate of 295,000, the lowest level since February, the Commerce Department said Monday. After peaking in 2011 at 316,000 in April, new-home sales have gradually declined...
The average sales price of a new home, meanwhile, sank 8.7% to $246,000, the lowest level since January 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Someone is going to have to convince me there life returning to the housing market even on a small level.
It isn't. I heard a similar report that claimed the jump in sales and at the end reported a record number of bank owned homes and homes in foreclosure.
The real estate lobby is working overtime to save their own sorry asses by lying and hyping homes like they did in the early 2000's.
There is one major catalyst for the continuing decline, lenders aren't lending.
I saw mortgage rates of 4% fixed on 30 years last week. I don’t think you could do much better than that!
lenders aren’t lending because it doesn’t make sense to loan. In a declining housing market, why lend money? If the person defaults on the loan, the bank will lose money, since the value of the seized asset is less than the value of the loan. And then the bank is stuck with a delapidating, unoccupied house.
I just refi’d below 3.5%. It was a 15 year though.
We were interested in a lake home and contacted Bank of America to ask about homes they had in foreclosure. They set us up with a realtor who they said handles their properties. She sent us one set of postings then never followed up, even when we sent an email saying wer wanted to view one of the properties. It is like they don’t care if they sell them or not.
With the continuing implementation of Dodd/Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Elizabeth Warren's baby), I can't see lenders ever providing financing to most potential borrowers.
What Government has accomplished is an institutionalized housing depression. As goes the housing market, so goes the economy.
Do the banks get some sort of tax write-off on foreclosures?
there are only a few limited solutions.
1. allow short sales to the current owner of the home inorder to reboot the fraudulent documents and reset the loan.
2. allow lien splitting in bankruptcy.
3. force judges to follow the law regarding the robosigning and MERS fraud.
4. Banks take a haircut to the actual value given that they have been already paid via tarp.
“There is one major catalyst for the continuing decline, lenders aren’t lending.”
Are the banks - who hold our savings - supposed to pretend that the cheap-money-fueled bubble in housing, housing markets and housing values has deflated back to a level reflecting real historic norms yet? And go ahead and help fuel a small new bubble that will have to be retracted when its artificiality is recognized? And put a whole new set of home buyers “under water” when that bubble is burst?
No, banks should not do that. They should carefully value each deal against historic norms of housing values, locally, and the risks they should normally take. Value and risk must guide their lending, not a social and political agenda to “boost the sale of houses” to create “success” statistically.
Lenders should only increase lending greatly when housing values of what is for sale have deflated back to values reflecting a healthy historic normal trend, minus the bubble that burst in 2007-8.
That may be unfortunate for some current mortgage holders.
The cause is not current levels of bank lending.
The cause is the bubble that created over-valued housing prices in the first place.
Don't assume that the corporate offices of Bank of America know about your type of experience.
Walk into a local Bank of America branch.
Lie, to get a face to face meeting, by telling them you want to talk to someone about getting a mortgage.
Once your face-to-face starts, tell the local BofA person your story, your interest in BofA foreclosed properties and about the unresponsive realtor.
Then ask that person directly:
“Are you guys really interested in getting some of your foreclosed properties sold?” our experience makes us question the BofA committment to that."
I bet you get a meeting with a different realtor and I bet you get a local BofA contact who expects you to call back if that realator is no good.
Why don't you try that before assuming that your short-lived experience is factually reflective of BofA corporate not caring whether or not they unload their foreclosed properties.
Operate on the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" principle. That's often required with giant entities, whether they be businesses or governments. They are full of instances where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
A neighbor just moved after buying a house. They had been looking at foreclosed houses, but they were still too high-priced compared to the other houses, and in much worse shape. Some had been sitting on the market for ever with no price reductions.
He said he found out where the gov’t gave the banks some sort of “insurance” to give them a certain percentage on the loan or something - so basically the bank wasn’t going to lose money on the house - even if it didn’t sell. (Or something like that).
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