Owners Optimistic About Home Values
More than 16 percent of home owners say their houses increased in value during the past year, the highest percentage in nearly two years, according to a Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey.
While 75 percent of home owners viewed current home-buying conditions as good, citing attractive prices and low mortgage rates, about 89 percent thought market conditions for selling a home were poor. While still an overwhelmingly negative number, it was still better than the results of the May 2009 survey when almost 100 percent of home owners panned the climate for sales.
Some 43 percent of home owners said their home decreased in value during the past year. Nevertheless, home owners believe their homes will ultimately rise in value, with the average annual anticipated gain over the next five years at 2.1 percent.
Source: Reuters News, Julie Haviv (05/21/2010)
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Home Values Impact All Areas of Economy
Real estate can be an engine or a brake for the U.S. economy. And today, it’s mostly slowing things down.
“The housing market, since it was the epicenter of the crisis, is also central to the feeble recovery,” says Ethan Harris, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Everything is interconnected: Employment is closely tied to construction spending, which is 25 percent below what it was in 2006. And because property values remain low, many people are mired in debt and can no longer rely on home equity to help them out of it.
The decline in property values is also preventing small businesses from using equity to expand. And lower property values mean lower property taxes, which dents government spending on everything from teachers to police officers.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Conor Dougherty (05/10/2010)
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Home Values Have Been Stabilizing
U.S. homes lost $489 billion in value during the first 11 months of 2009. That’s significantly less than the $3.6 trillion lost during 2008 and evidence that home values are stabilizing, says Zillow.com, online real estate research firm.
Properties in 48 of the 154 markets tracked by Zillow rose in value this year, but Zillow’s Chief Economist Stan Humphries believes prices could decline again in 2010.
“We believe that demand will come under downward pressure as mortgage rates creep back up after the first quarter and that housing supply will experience upward pressure as the volume of foreclosures continues to remain high. Both these factors will challenge the recent stabilization of home prices,” Humphries said in a statement.
Areas where home prices rose the most in 2009 were:
* Boston
* Providence
* Denver, Colo.
* Atlanta, Ga.
* Rochester, N.Y.
Areas where homes continued to lose the most value:
* Los Angeles
* Chicago
* New York
* Miami-Fort Lauderdale
* Phoenix
Source: Zillow.com (12/0920/09)
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Home Sellers become More Realistic on Home Prices
Home Sellers become More Realistic on Home Prices while Realtors Express Greater Optimism about Housing Market
RISMEDIA, May 23, 2009-HomeGain, one of the first websites to provide free instant home values, announced the results of an extensive nationwide survey on home prices based on the responses of over 1,150 Realtors.
The survey shows that 36% of homeowners think their homes should be listed 10 to 20% higher than what their Realtors’ recommend, down from 45% in the first quarter.
Conversely, 64% of homebuyers think that homes are overpriced versus 59% who believed the same in the first quarter.
“Realtors are in a unique position as they get to hear both sides of the home price story – the buyers’ and the sellers’. They then apply their own home valuation analysis based on their understanding of the market which often meets resistance from buyers and sellers,” said Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain. “The results of our second quarter Realtor home prices survey indicates that home sellers seem to be getting the message that perhaps their homes are not worth as much as they thought they were, while buyers are expecting to find a bargain on every corner.”
The Realtors surveyed expressed more optimism in the second quarter survey on the direction of home prices than in the first quarter, with 22% of them believing that home values will increase in the next six months versus 11% who believed the same in the first quarter. Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents believe that home prices will fall in the next six months versus 53% who believed the same in the first quarter survey.
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