Since the beginning of the house-price crash in 2007 almost every analyst has predicted that “the bottom” in house prices is just around the corner. As you know they were wrong every time. But maybe now, finally, it looks as though house prices may actually be nearing a bottom.
Why you ask?
Well it is being reported that after falling nearly 35% from their 2007 peak, nationwide house prices are finally approaching “normal” levels on two key valuation measures: The “price-to-rent ratio,” which measures house prices relative to what the houses might rent for, and the “price-to-income ratio,” which measures house prices relative to average incomes.
Economists at Goldman Sachs, using the first ratio have concluded that national house prices will decline another 2.5% in 2012 and then possibly bottom over the course of the following year.
As we all know house prices differ markedly depending on where you live. The report by the Goldman Sachs analysts have considerably different predictions for different markets. Prices in New York, Portland and Atlanta, Goldman predicts, will still see significant declines. While prices in Detroit, Miami and Cleveland should rise.
Most importantly, after a price bubble similar to the one the U.S. just experienced, prices often don’t stop at “average” levels on the way down. They often plunge straight through “fair value” and spend years below average levels. And that certainly could happen to house prices this time around.
The report states that they believe house prices will level out in a year or two. Keep in mind that even if house prices do bottom in 2013, that doesn’t mean that they’ll quickly shoot up again.
30-year mortgage rates are still averaging a rock-bottom 4%. The applications to purchase homes rose after Thanksgiving to the highest level in four months.
With Freddie Mac’s weekly report on home lender offerings released Thursday it showed the typical rate for a 30-yearloan at 3.99%, the sixth straight week at or slightly below 4%. Last year at this time, the 30-year fixed loan averaged 4.61%.
Fifteen-year fixed-rate home loans, a popular option for people refinancing homes, averaged 3.27%, down from last week’s 3.3%. A year ago, the 15-year loan averaged 3.96% according to Freddie Mac.
The typical mortgage rate for larger “jumbo” loans are running about a third of a percentage point higher, according toanother report this week from the Mortgage Bankers Assn. Jumbo loans are priced higher because lenders can’t sell them to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae These other big government-sponsored mortgage buyer.
Offering a bit of hope for housing at a time when foreclosures are drawing angry protests and government investigations, the mortgage bankers said applications for loans to buy houses reached the highest level since early August.
Refinances still made up about three-quarters of all applications for home loans, however.
It has been reported that more than one in five American home mortgages are underwater.
The estimate is that 10.7-million households, or 22.1% of all homes with mortgages, had more debt on the properties than they were worth in the third quarter. The report was released by the firm CoreLogic. This is a slight decline from the 10.9 million properties that were underwater in the second quarter.
Although slightly down, negative equity remains very high and renders many borrowers vulnerable when negative economic shocks occur, such as job loss or illness. The nearly $700-billion mortgage debt overhang has touched many corners of the market, and this overhang is holding back the recovery of the housing market and broader economy.
Nevada had the highest negative-equity percentage with 58% of mortgaged homes underwater, followed by Arizona, 47%; Florida, 44%; Michigan, 35% and Georgia, 30%. This was the first quarter that Georgia made the top five, ousting from the group California, which had been among the top spots since the firm began tracking the data in 2009.
In the Los Angeles Metro area, 353,427 homes, or 23% of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter, a decline from 356,677. Negative equity can decline when foreclosures increase as the repossession process extinguishes underwater loans.
The California Association has reported that California’s housing market displayed a glimmer of recovery during October as pending sales increased for the sixth consecutive month.
The number of open escrows, a measure of future sales activity, jumped 11 percent in October from a year earlier and rose 3 percent from September.
It appears that home sales are likely to be up in the next couple of months. The report states that they are not anticipating a decline in sales but they’re not looking for any sort of a dramatic increase.
Home sales statewide this year should be in the 490,000 range and California is grinding through sales at a pretty decent clip.
The association’s report came on the same day that the National Association of Realtors reported an annualized sales rate of 4.97 million homes in October, up 1.4 percent from September and 13.5 percent from a year ago.
Sales in the west rose 4 percent to an annual pace of 1.19 million in October, which is 15.5 percent higher than a year earlier.
It was also reported that sales in California increased 8.5 percent from a year earlier and rose 1 percent from September to an annualized rate of 493,240 properties.
It was also noted that the conforming loan limit just went back up to $729,500, which could stimulate activity at the higher end of the market.
Another good sign is that some lenders are moving quicker in approving short sale transactions.
Sales of distressed properties also appear to be stabilizing, according to the association.
Last month, foreclosed or abandoned properties accounted for 44.8 percent of sales, up from 44.5 percent in September but down from 46.1percent a year earlier.
