Did you know that in Houston, sales are down, yes, but the average home price is up? That is economics at its best. Who would have expected that? I do not even pay attention to national stats anymore. Do they matter? Each housing market is in of itself, a statistic. Locally, I can report that for the first time in my entire career (14 years) I have noticed recently (this month) people holding back not sure what to do . Qualified borrowers. Maybe they are unsure about their job, or the down payment was coming from their stock that was losing money.
However, This week things did begin to pick back up for us. I reported last week that my desk was clean, well, it is dirty again, with papers disheveled and stacked. The phones have been ringing. I had 3 calls just this week to ‘save’ deals that were falling out with other lenders could not approve them. We are glad to assist! For you to know, we can close files in 48 hours if needed. But each of our realtors is only allowed 1 of those favors a month! That was, of course, a joke. Foreclosure filings have spiked 71%, nationally. In September, 81,312 homes were lost to foreclosure. Since a year ago, 851,000 have been repossessed by lenders.
This brings up a point I would like to share. Fannie and Freddie have of recent come up with some guidelines regarding homes that are being financed in areas with high foreclosures as a percent of the total sales in the last 12 months. If that number is greater than 15%, there is a problem. I had to turn down a borrower for that reason 3 months ago. He was purchasing a property in a neighborhood that had 27% foreclosures (as a % of total listings sold) in the last 12 months. I was mad, frustrated and quite frankly, baffled. How will we as a society ever get OUT of this mess, if the lenders will not even loan on properties they are foreclosing on? I understand that this ‘guideline’ is in place to avoid the lenders investing in areas that are on the decline, but when the homes are selling that should amount to something? There has to be a solution. But I have not been able to think of one, so stay tuned on that subject.
RATES ARE DOWN THIS WEEK! (.25%). The stock market took some heavy losses, and in anticipation of the Fed Funds rate possibly coming down another .500%, investors are pricing that into the market. Its about time we have some relief in rates. Now if we can convince Fannie/Freddie (aka the government, right?) to increase the conforming limit to $650,000 or so, we will be fine. It would be about time! There is a show on MSNBC called Mad Money. Cramer (the host) is just beside himself today. He is on right now, waiving his arms and screaming. Today’s headline is :‘The Dow is down 15 of the last 19 weeks. Down 36% total.’ MORE REASON TO PUT YOUR MONEY INTO REAL ESTATE! In my opinion, it is still the best investment there is.
No comments:
Post a Comment