RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News & More
With the latest on mortgages, refinancing, real estate & home tips
If you are the typical person out there, reading the main stream media reports about housing, and whether the market is “good or “bad” you probably think that the current market is “bad”. But when it comes to market dynamics, the housing market is neither “good” or “bad”, bur rather, “good” and “bad” are all defined within your personal frame of reference.
According to the Standard and Poors / Case-Schiller 4th Quarter 2011 Index of U.S. housing prices, 19 of the 20 markets in the 20 city composite index showed a continuing downward trend in housing prices. Atlanta, GA was the weakest housing market in the U.S. with a change of -11.7% during this same period.
The writing has been on the wall for years, but the moment when cities will have to make serious cuts to deal with falling housing prices may come in 2012. Part of the real estate market collapse that rarely gets attention is the effect it has on property taxes. Cities use those taxes to pay [...]
In today’s report to congress, I could not help but notice two things. First, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was essentially admitting that his program to solve our economic problems with more spending is not working out very well. And it was painfully obvious that some if not most of the congressmen/women on the panel had [...]
A recent survey of bank risk managers indicates that “Home prices are unlikely to recover before 2020 and mortgage defaults will persist for years…” It seems that the bad news for housing is that prices won’t go up much for years to come. But from a fundamental standpoint, this is exactly what the housing market [...]
Talk to any realtor in Birmingham, A.L., and you will probably hear the same thing that realtors are saying across the country, “Things are okay, but they could be better.” Sales in Birmingham for the month of August were down 5%, however they were 21% higher than levels last August. Experts believe that this is [...]
It may not signal the end of the problems for housing, but the Case-Shiller home price index is finally beginning to trend towards some encouraging news. Home prices for June rose an average of 1.1% in most major markets. This was the third month in a row showing positive uptick in home prices. But, if [...]
As anyone with any experience on Wall Street will attest, whenever someone wins big, there’s always somebody else who misses out and is left counting their losses. And it seems that, despite the somewhat unfounded belief that housing investments are always seen as a safe bet, according to a new survey at least, the same can be said of real estate investments as well.
