Chapel Hill Real Estate Information

Tuesday, 25 August 2009

Home Prices Increase...Has Housing Turned the Corner?

NEW YORK – Home prices posted their first quarterly increase in three years, signaling the housing market has turned a corner.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller's U.S. National Home Price Index released Tuesday rose nearly 3 percent from the first quarter to 133, though that reading is still down almost 15 percent from the second quarter last year.

Home prices are at levels not seen since early 2003. Prices have fallen 30 percent from the peak in the second quarter of 2006.

The monthly index of 20 major cities increased 1.4 percent from May to June to 142, the second straight month the index registered a gain. All but two cities, Las Vegas and Detroit, saw home prices rise, and Dallas and Denver clocked their fourth-straight monthly increase.

Prices, however, have a long way to go to recover completely. Every metro showed annual declines, with fifteen reporting double-digit drops.

The Case-Shiller index is a composite of home price indexes for the nine U.S. census divisions. The 20-city index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000. The base reading is 100; so a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of the index.

POSTED BY: Christine Khoury AT 08:36 am | Permalink | E-mail this

Friday, 14 August 2009

Report from Brookings Institute.....RTP Set for Strongest in NC, & in Top 40 Areas in the Country!

Brookings report ranks Raleigh-Cary strongest metro in N.C.

Triangle Business Journal - by Cameron Snipes

Related News

A report by the Brookings Institution that gauges the impact of the recession on metropolitan America has listed the Raleigh-Cary metro area as the strongest in North Carolina, and among the top 40 in the nation.

Brookings’ MetroMonitor ranks the nation’s 100 largest metro areas based on their economic performance as judged by six key indicators – employment, unemployment rates, wages, gross metropolitan product, housing prices and foreclosure rates.

The listing is broken down into five groups of 20. The groups are listed as strongest, second-strongest, middle, second-weakest and weakest. The report covers the entire first quarter of 2009.

The Greensboro metro was listed in the report as one of the country’s second-weakest metros, while Charlotte was among the 20 middle metros.

Here’s how the Raleigh-Cary metro are fared in key data: The percentage change in employment from peak employment to first quarter 2009 was negative 2.9 percent; the percentage change in the unemployment rate from the first quarter 2008 to the same quarter in 2009 was 4.6 percent; the percentage change in gross metropolitan product from peak GMP to first quarter 2009 was negative 1.1 percent; and the real percent change in housing prices from first quarter 2008 to first quarter 2009 was 2 percent.

Four of the top five strongest performing metros, according to the report, are in Texas. They are San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Dallas. Oklahoma City was the other representative on the top five list. On the other hand, four of the five weakest are in Florida. They are Bradenton, Tampa, Lakeland and Jacksonville. MetroMonitor determined that Detroit was the weakest-performing metro in the country.

The MetroMonitor, which will be released on a quarterly basis, bills itself as an interactive barometer of the health of America’s metropolitan economies and looks at national economic statistics to portray the diverse metropolitan trajectories of recession and recovery across the country.RT

POSTED BY: Christine AT 07:33 pm | Permalink | E-mail this

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Info on Short Sales...

What is with the Short Sales ?

I am starting to get more and more interest from sellers selling homes for less than what they owe, so though I would publish this thought on what to do if you are "underwater" in your loan (or loans) or know someone who is, and are unable to get the bank to modify your loan.

There are basically four options....... (1) Pay the bank the money owed on the loan when the house closes in excess of what you receive for the house in the sale. (2) Do a short sale - or get the bank to agree on taking less money than what is owed. (3) Hand the key back to the bank in whats called a deed in lieu of foreclosure and (4) Let the bank foreclose on your home.

What you don't want to do is 3 or 4. In both cases you will now always have to answer yes on any credit application where it asks "have you ever had a foreclosure", this is a MAJOR credit hit and needs to be avoided. If you are in the military or require a security clearance then in many cases this will prevent you from getting the job and could get you fired. In helping several of my clients with short sales, this seems to be the avenue of choice as the credit hit seems to be minimal (as in 150-250 points for a short period of time) and the loan is marked as "paid less than agreed", vs the foreclosure. This is a way to save your credit and in many cases the debt is forgive with no deficiency judgement, and no tax due on the deficiency. IMPORTANT: Please contact your attorney or tax advisor prior to entering into any of the above.

If you choose to sell your house under a short sale or know anyone thinking of doing so, please contact me as soon as possible. For people in this unfortunate situation, there is light at the end of the tunnel and we have become proficient at selling homes on short sales with the seller walking away relieved of the debt, the stress and with no stigma attached to the outcome. These are stressful times, and I am here to assist in any way I can to help relieve that stress when it comes to being in this situation. Call or email today for more information.

POSTED BY: AT 10:53 pm | Permalink | E-mail this