Gloomy outlook seen for stalled Florida real estate market

Uncertainty continues to plague Florida’s bleak real estate outlook in the latest University of Florida quarterly survey, with fears that stagnant financial markets, rising unemployment and another round of foreclosures could make things worse in 2010. http://bit.ly/9PDXPC #in

An industry conference call on “U.S. Real Estate of the Union”

Recording by Trulia discussing how President Obama did in his first year in regards to turning around the housing crisis. http://tinyurl.com/yeys9yb

Foreclosure Crisis Still Threat to Recovery?

Prime foreclosures on the rise. Interesting video about US foreclosure market. See http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/playlist/9572/1251153

Real estate claws itself out of a hole

Vancouver Real estate claws itself out of a hole. Falling home prices appear to be behind us in the Lower Mainland as sales keep rising. Vancouver SunDecember 31, 2009

Housing Market Indicators November 2009

ORLANDO – Dec. 22, 2009 – Florida’s existing home sales rose in November, marking 15 months that sales activity has increased in the year-to-year comparison, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors®.

Housing Market Indicators:

Florida existing home sales:
(month-to-previous-year comparison)

• 61%

Florida existing condo sales:
(month-to-previous-year comparison)

• 111%

Florida existing home median price:

• $139,000

Florida existing condo median price:

• $104,400

Florida consumer confidence:

• 69

National existing home sales:
(month-to-previous-month comparison; all housing types)

• 7.4%

National existing home median price

• $172,600

National (Freddie Mac) mortgage rate
(all housing types)

4.94%

Homeowners groups feel economy’s pain, too — OrlandoSentinel.com

Homeowners groups feel economy’s pain, too — OrlandoSentinel.com

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Real Estate investing in British Columbia, Canada?

Vancouver and Whistler are popular places to invest in. We have had a good network for years.

See the following listing:

Nanaimo, BC (Vancouver Island). Land for development (multifamily). Minutes to downtown Nanaimo, the float plane and ferry terminals and the North Island Highway.

7,56 acres at 2,000,000 CAD

Site is zoned RM5, approved for 124 apartment units and 14 townhouses situated within the well established Northfield residential neighbourhood.
See also adjacent 22 acres listed.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

Fantastic to hear and learn from such experience! See CNBC’s video:

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great – CNBC.com.

Google Wave

Trying out Google Wave now. It seems an entire new method of communicating. Dr Wave is explaining this new tool…

Delinquent Mortgages Reach Record Levels

Almost 10 percent of all mortgages on one- to four-unit properties are in some stage of foreclosure, up from 2.65 percent a year ago on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey released Thursday.

The combined percentage of loans in foreclosure or at least one payment past due was 14.41 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the highest ever recorded in an MBA delinquency survey.

The bankers blamed the high foreclosure levels on unemployment. “Over the last year, we have seen the ranks of the unemployed increase by about 5.5 million people, increasing the number of seriously delinquent loans by almost 2 million loans and increasing the rate of new foreclosures from 1.07 percent to 1.42 percent,” says Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s chief economist.

Brinkmann points out that prime fixed-rate loans represent the largest share of foreclosures and are the biggest driver of the increase in foreclosures.

Home builders and housing analysts mostly shrugged at the high foreclosure-rate information.

“My prediction is we’ll probably recover on a seasonal basis,” Robert Toll, chairman and CEO of Toll Brothers, the largest builder of luxury houses, said yesterday at a conference in New York sponsored by Citigroup Inc. “It’s generally accepted that the homebuilding industry is off the mat and on the road to recovery.”

Josh Levin, a housing analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York, said he expects sales to continue to be slow until January or early February, followed by a surge as buyers try to beat the April 30 expiration of the tax credit.

“The bouncing along the bottom is distorted by government policies,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News yesterday.

Source: Mortgage Bankers Association (11/19/2009) and Bloomberg, Kathleen M. Howley and John Gittelsohn (11/20/2009)