Trang’s Weekly Real Estate Wrap-Up for 1/8/2010

California’s Median Price: First Year-to-Year Gain in Two Years
Median price has been an improving situation: Following a 59% peak-to-trough decline, California’s median price surpassed the $300,000 thredhold in November, an increase of 2.4% in month-to-month comparisons, and the first year-to-year increase since August 2007.
Sales also in healthy territory: Home sales in California returned to pre-peak [...]

Why does our economy rely on new home building for signs of recovery?

One of the major reasons we are in a major real estate correction is because the new home builders, built too many homes. Why does wallstreet care if they start building again? We, as a country, are already over built, so why do we want them to build more homes?

Trang’s Weekly Real Estate Wrap-Up for Oct 30th, 2009

Homebuyer Credit Gets New Life
Key lawmakers in the Senate have tentatively agreed to extend the existing $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and also offer a new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who have lived in their current residence for a consecutive five-year period in the past eight years.
Read more: WSJ Online
Digging yourself out [...]

10 Popular House Styles with Pictures

Styles of houses vary across the country. From the New England Cape Cod to the Victorians of San Francisco, the choices are almost endless. This post is a quick guide to help you recognize and use the professional terms for many of the most prevalent house styles with pictures included

Trang’s Weekly Real Estate Wrap-Up for Oct 2nd, 2009

New rules coming soon
Beginning Oct. 1, new rules adopted by the Federal Reserve will go into effect, requiring greater diligence on the part of mortgage lenders and brokers who issue high-cost loans for borrowers with less than favorable credit.  The interest rates on these loans are at least 1.5 percentage points greater than the average [...]

Pending Home Sales Rise at Historic Rates and Other Real Estate Recovery Indicators

Pending home sales is an index that measures housing contract activity. It is based on signed real estate contracts for existing single-family homes, condos and co-ops. A signed contract is not counted as a sale until the transaction closes. Modeling for the PHSI looks at the monthly relationship between existing-home sale contracts and transaction closings over the last four years.

Projected Real Estate Foreclosures by State, 2009 Through 2014

Depending on where you look or who you talk to, you will find a wide range of answers to questions about the economy, foreclosures, banking, etc…
I’ve seen a couple questions on forums and real estate advice boards asking if there will be a second wave of foreclosures to hit. I think a lot of people [...]

Peak Real Estate Prices in 2020, Is the Real Estate Market Good Or Bad?

First I saw an interesting post on HousingWire about when the market will reach their peaks again. One thing to note is that Housingwire is really a real estate PR websites, but I do find good information on it. Also, to note that the real news in this story is not length from peak to peak housing prices, but the bottom of the market to peak prices.

Before Getting Foreclosed, Try Buying a New Home and the Banks Can't Stop You

A person buys a home during the peak of the real estate market for about $500K. The house is now worth about $160K – A huge hole. So the person then goes and buys another home in the area for $160, but in many cases they can get an even bigger home for just a little more. After they move into the new home, they simply walk away from the first and let the bank have it back.

Trang’s Weekly Real Estate Wrap-Up for Sept. 18th, 2009

This weeks wrapup is all over the place. Everything from a remark from Ben Bernanke about the recession being over, to increases in foreclosures. It’s really hard to understand anything that is happening in the market.