According to NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, pending home sales have now posted annual increases for the last 19 months consecutively. Lawrence Yun (left) , NAR’s Chief Economist, offered this comment via the release:

“Even with market frictions related to the mortgage process, home contract activity continues to improve. Home sales are recovering now based solely on fundamental demand and favorable affordability conditions.”

Furthermore, the NAR projects that existing-home sales will rise between 8 to 9 percent for 2013.

The Pending Home Sales Index is based on a huge national sample, which represents about one fifth of all transactions for existing home sales. Existing-home sales for December are to be announced January 28; release times are 10:00 a.m. EST.

The video below from NAR offers more details.

The predicted market trend were based on what would happen after the government investigation into faulty paperwork on the banks providing home loans’ side. After all foreclosure investigations would have been concluded, there would have been a large number of homes that then lenders would resell, thus causing the drop in prices. However, two years after the government stepped in to investigate and even after the five biggest mortgage servicers in US settled the case with the federal and state regulators at the beginning of 2012, the wave of foreclosures still failed to come. The big players paid $25 billion, but the deal with banks also meant they were forced to cut deals with homeowners.

Data from the National Association of Realtors shows the index of pending home resales climbed 5.2% in October, while the median price for home sales in the same month was up 11% from 2011, the steepest annual increase since November 2005. Not such a big surprised if one considers the fact that 309,385 borrowers were given loan relief by the five largest U.S. mortgage servicers since March 2012. A report by Joseph Smith released in mid November shows a little under 22,000 borrowers had principal forgiveness totaling $2.55 billion, while another 113,000 borrowers won bank approval for short sales, meaning $13.1 billion in principal writedowns.

The wave of foreclosures seems even further with federal government loan-modification programs and as interest rates that reached a record low led to a spike in mortgage refinancing, helping homeowners to keep up their payments by decreasing the sums they have to pay every month. “The Federal Reserve Bank of New York had estimated that as many as 1.8 million properties would be taken back by banks in 2012. Yet through October, there have been only about 559,000 home seizures, according to RealtyTrac,” state John Gittelsohn and Prashant Gopal of Businessweek.

“In hindsight, by delaying and prolonging the foreclosure process, that gave the market time to stabilize and get back on its feet,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, which warned a year ago that huge numbers of foreclosed homes were going to hit the market. “Maybe bureaucracy is actually helping, in this case, to diffuse the impact of the foreclosures. Talk about unintended consequences.”

While the number of properties for sale is extremely low, it does not mean there were no foreclosure sales. Institutional investors such as Blackstone Group and Colony Capital have actually bought thousands of foreclosed properties in bulk, long before they hit the market, but instead of reselling them, they chose to rent them.

While the facts contradict expert’s predictions, massive foreclosures hitting the market is still quite the threat, especially as a quarter of US homeowners still owe more than their property’s worth and as the economy has not made a full recovery as of yet.

Photo source

Janet Rubino

Long & Foster’s Devon sales office had a fantastic end to 2011, finishing number one in the Philadelphia region for sales volumes during December. The office also took the number one spot for the region for the entire year.

Regional Vice President, Art Herling commented “During December the Devon office finished number eight in the entire company-out of 176 sales offices. In addition their sales volume was up 48% versus December of 2010, and their units were up 17% versus the same time frame.”

Vice President and Manager, Janet Rubino made an interesting point about December sales, saying: “During December of 2011 our average sale price increased 27% over December of 2010, which is something to consider when thinking about selling your home.” She added “The success of the office is due to our extremely talented and experienced staff of sales associates-I can’t say enough about this very special group.”

The Devon sales office covers a wide area including the entire five county Greater Philadelphia region and other areas including Berks County. It has homes for sale in every price category, ranging from those suitable for first-time buyers right up to high-end luxury homes. For more information please call 610-2 25-7400 or visit their website.

Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. is the largest privately held residential real estate company in the United States. It’s part of the Long & Foster(R) Companies and represents more than 13,000 agents in seven Mid-Atlantic states, plus the District of Columbia. During 2010 the combined sales for long & Foster Companies were in excess of $47 billion.

Massey Knakal release 3rd quarter property sales report for New York © smartscrutiny - Fotolia.com

The report shows that during the first three quarters of this year there were $19.1 billion in New York City property sales, an increase of 111% on the same period last year. This equates to an 80% increase over 2010 on an annualized basis. At the moment 1,548 properties have been sold representing an annualized turnover of 1.25%. The Brooklyn market has outperformed other markets in terms of property sales, accounting for 34% of all properties sold, but Manhattan is still the best performer in terms of dollar volume with $16.7 billion of sales which is 87% of all sales citywide.

Manhattan (south of 96th Street on East side and south of 110th Street on the West side), saw 414 transactions during the first three quarters of this year, a 29% increase compared to the same period last year and a 27% increase on an annualized basis. There were 473 properties sold during the first three quarters of 2011, which is an increase of 30% compared to last year and 29% on an annualized basis. The aggregate sales consideration was $16.7 billion, which is an increase of 135% compared to the same period last year, and which equates to an increase of 93% over 2010 on an annualized basis.

In Brooklyn there were 447 transactions which was a 22% increase over the first three quarters in 2010, and this represented an increase of 18% from 2010 on an annualized basis. There were 529 properties sold which is an increase of 25% on the first three quarters of 2010, and is an increase of 22% from 2010 on an annualized basis.

Queens saw 247 transactions which is an increase of 22% compared to last year, up 20% from 2010 on an annualized basis. A total of 269 properties were sold which is an increase of 20% compared to last year, and up 19% on an annualized basis.
In North Manhattan (north of 96th Street East of Central Park and north of 110th Street West Central Park), 68 transactions occurred, down 11% compared to last year, and down 11% on an annualized basis from 2010. There were 101 properties sold, down 7% from last year.

The report concluded saying conditions in the New York City’s investment sales market continue to steadily improve.

Home prices could be about to rise, says Shaun Donovan. Image courtesy of Knowledge Instead

Donovan was speaking on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ program at the weekend, and said “It’s very unlikely that we will see a significant further decline. The real question is when will we start to see sustainable increases? Some think it will be as early as the end of this summer or this fall.”

Property sales have increased in six out of the last nine months, and the number of homeowners whose mortgages are in default is declining, and the general opinion is that prices will start to rise as the number of foreclosures drops.  It’s a great time to buy with prices being at their most affordable for generations.

The number of contracts signed to purchase previously homes rose by 8.2% in May, according to figures released by the National Association of Realtors on June 29th. Around 1.7 million US homes undergoing foreclosure proceedings were expected to be on the market in April, which is 18% less than peak figures.

Home prices will go up once foreclosures are out of the way, say experts. Image courtesy of Big Goss

The shadow inventory of unsold foreclosure homes now has a five month supply at the current rate of sales, according to CoreLogic Inc., and this inventory provides a useful indication of the state of the market, as foreclosure homes drag down the prices of normal homes and discourage buyers.

However the concern still remains that many would be homeowners are finding it difficult to get finance due to tighter lending conditions. Donovan  feels that homeowners should be encouraged to have realistic expectations about buying property, and should regard it as a good investment that will make money over time.