Real Estate Directory

Pending home sales up 5.3 percent

Home sales contracts signed in June unexpectedly jumped up 5.3 percent from the month before, according to a report released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.

Many believe that prices have gotten low enough that investors and bargain hunters are buying up post-foreclosure properties and other low-priced homes, thus causing a jump in pending home sales.

In fact, the Pending Home Sales index in June was at it's highest since last October. 

The Housing Crisis is Not What You May Think

Conventional wisdom says that the Subprime Mortgages  is to blame for the housing crisis. However, a new study from UC Irvine found that it was  Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac huge retreat from the credit market in 2003 caused the bubble and subsequent crash. This pulout was from accounting and political pressure.  Melissa Lafsky the editor of the Freakonomics Blog gives her take onthe new housing study.

How Happy Are We? Number 16

As a follow up to my Debbie Downer piece. We actually are pretty happy people. Which based onsomewhat conflicting data like this we seem to be pretty confused and may I say tugged at.

We're number 16 ... in world happiness. Feel the joy. The United States ranks ahead of more than 80 countries, but below 15 others in happiness levels, according to new World Values Survey data released in the July issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

The latest surveys, taken in the United States and in several developing countries, showed increased happiness from 1981 to 2007 in 45 of 52 countries for which substantial time series data was available.source

Americans grow happier as they grow older.

According to a University of Chicago study that is one of the most thorough examinations of happiness ever done in America.The study also found that baby boomers are not as content as other generations, African Americans are less happy than whites, men are less happy than women, happiness can rise and fall between eras, and that, with age the differences narrow.source

Growth:Blue Skies Ahead?

Existing home sales edge up 2 percent in May only second gain in past 10 months

Sales of existing homes edged up slightly in May although median home prices continued to fall. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums rose by 2 percent to 4.99 million units last month.

This might be the start of something stable.

WSJ Has housing bottomed?

Has real estate bottomed?

Is it time to start house hunting? Cyril Moulle-Bertaux opined that April 2008 marked the bottom of the U.S. housing market.

And in his R.O.I. column WSJ’s Brett Arends makes a similar argument. He looks at the data on housing starts since 1972, which shows that new housing starts slumped below the one million mark in March. Every time that has happened in the last 50 years, Mr. Arends writes, it proved to be the bottom of a recession.

“It’s bottom-fishing time, I think,” says Wellesley College Prof. Karl E. Case in the column. Mr. Arends says that he is one of the leading experts on the housing market in the country. “There’s got to be bargains in Florida, Arizona and Nevada.”

Warren Buffett

What does the worlds richest person say about the economy on Wall Street? Warren Buffett told Bloomberg:

``The worst of the crisis in Wall Street is over,'' Buffett said today on Bloomberg Television. ``In terms of people with individual mortgages, there's a lot of pain left to come.'' Buffett was interviewed before the Omaha, Nebraska-based company's annual meeting, attended by about 31,000 people.

He said the bail out of Bear Stearns helped save others from crashing, and that indeed he tried to make a play for the failing firm but wasn't liquid enough."It averted a very chaotic situation".

Things are looking up

"This economy is going to come on," Bush said Friday. "I'm confident it will."

Hmmm. Presidential Spin or true?

..the stock market is up — almost 11 percent in the last few weeks. Junk bonds, those risky corporate IOUs, are rallying. The value of financial shares, bank loans, tricky credit derivatives — up, up, up. Many on Wall Street, the epicenter of the credit mess, seems to think that the worst is over. For the first time in months, analysts and executives sound upbeat again. Many of them see a broad, sustained recovery in both the economy and the financial markets coming in second half of this year, a prediction some market strategists call hopeful at best.

From the AP-The Dow Jones industrials cross 13,000 as dollar soars and optimism rises about economy...jobless rate falls.

From Realty Times-Resales were actually UP in large parts of the country -- sales in the Northeast states, for example, jumped by 2.3 percent, and in the Western states they were up by 2.2 percent...Condominiums, which saw a 3.6 percent jump in sales. That was on top of a 3.7 percent increase the month before. Home prices.

From The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight- reported a six tenths of a percent GAIN in average home values.

Getting Real About this Housing Market

By Robert Sheridan

      The surprise these days isn’t the steady drumbeats of doom and gloom emanating from the financial and housing markets. The surprise is that many people who should know better are still being surprised. Whether it’s mounting foreclosure numbers, bleak home sales reports or another sub-prime victim in the banking industry, the media, analysts and lenders gasp in astonishment every time we break a new rung on the way to the bottom of the financial ladder. This ought to stop.

How did we get here?

A cute cartoon of the housing crisis and we got from there to here, by real estate consultant.

Incomes Rise In Feb.

Income went up  in February as inflation worries subsided slightly.

The Commerce Department reported that February personal income rose 0.5 percent, exceeding a forecast of a 0.3 percent gain made by analysts polled before the report.

Stock index futures briefly added to gains after the report, while the dollar and U.S. government debt prices rose.