It is the Best Time To Buy A Home In 40 Years!! Values are at a forty year low. Interest rates are at a 40 year low. The government will give you money to buy a new home. The stimulous plan will bring inflation in the future which will raise interest rates and home values. We are presenly at the bottom or close to the bottom of the real estate market. This next twelve months will bring many foreclosure opportunities into the market place for motivated sellers and motivated buyers! The falling American Dollar will continue to fall and will provide less and less buying power for American's buying homes. Dallas is one of five metropolitan cities that will swell with jobs,because it has moved out of the recessionary times. New agents are moving to North Texas to take advantage of our excellent Dallas real estate market. I have a new agent joining my office next week moving here from New England to take advantage of the Dallas Real Estate opportunities. I invite other agents to add to my list of reasons why buyer's should be buying Dallas Homes Right Now!!!
Brian, here's hoping your three things come to pass quickly and swiftly. We can all use the boost.
Brian,
Congratulations! Sounds like things are going well in Dallas! Things are picking up in our area too! I agree it is the best time. The buyers seem to be realizing it too!
Have an Awesome week!
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Program 3648 certifies real estate professionals to service an exclusive territory, where they typically receive 200 Distressed Homeowner Leads per month to contact with Program 3648's help.
For Certification take the following steps:
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Best Regards,
Paul Brown
Certification Specialist
Program 3648
140 Whittington Pkwy. Ste. 200
Louisville, KY 40222
1-800-303-8531
59% of Home Buyers Rely on Low Down-Payment Government Mortgages
RISMEDIA, October 21, 2009—The new home market is cooling down and government intervention has been a key driver to new home sales, according to a recent monthly survey of home builders, just released by John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
In addition to the tax credit that expires Nov. 30, government mortgage programs have been critical in 2009. The survey reveals that 59% of this year’s sales have been dependent on FHA, VA or USDA financing programs with 96.5% to 100% LTV.
What percentage of your home buyers this year used this type of financing?
Region Cash FHA Jumbo Other Conforming USDA VA Don’t
Insured Loans Loans Loans Know
Midwest 3% 59% 1% 18% 3% 3% 13%
Northeast 7% 41% 8% 28% 2% 6% 8%
Northwest 5% 34% 13% 31% 6% 11% 1%
Northern CA
Region 4% 68% 0% 16% 0% 8% 3%
Northern
Florida 6% 47% 2% 15% 16% 9% 5%
Southeast 7% 48% 6% 18% 3% 11% 7%
Southern
California 6% 48% 15% 19% 0% 8% 3%
Southern
Florida 22% 59% 4% 13% 0% 3% 0%
The highest use of FHA financing was reported by Northern California builders, while Southern Florida builders reported the highest percentage of cash purchases. “The cash sales are most likely due to investor purchases of attached homes,” said Jody Kahn, a vice president with the firm.
Not surprisingly, Southern California reported the largest use of jumbo mortgages. “The tough underwriting and higher pricing of jumbos has constrained sales of move-up homes,” said Kahn.
This month’s survey consists of 262 home building industry executives from public and private companies. In total, their insight is reflective of on-the-ground conditions in 86 MSAs and 1,741 communities.
“The good news for builders is that there seems to be momentum behind the effort to extend the federal tax credit and that the FHA is going to become more conservative, but not significantly curtail operations,” said CEO John Burns. “Political winds can change quickly though, so stay tuned.”
Survey Highlights:
-The average unsold, finished inventory per community decreased nationally to 2.7 from 3.7 last month. This significant decline in inventory indicates the speculative starts from the summer are being converted to closings. Regions reporting significant declines in inventory per community since last month include Southern California, the Northwest and Southern Florida.
-Average net sales per community dropped from 2.0 to 1.6 nationally, returning to levels last seen in June and July. The net sales rate declined in seven regions compared to only one during the prior month. While significantly better affordability, low conventional mortgage rates, and the federal tax credit continue to support new home sales, builders across the country are reporting declines in traffic and sales rates in September and into October. Some builders lacking entry level inventory to close by November 30th are losing sales to competitors. Seasonality is also contributing to declining sales.
-Last month’s reports of price increases in California softened this month. Pricing in Southern California is now rated flat, while Northern California pricing is decreasing. This month, Southern Florida builders rated pricing as increasing. The direction of new home prices was unchanged nationally this month, and remains hovering near flat, as builders reporting further decreases in prices offset those builders seeing flat or increasing prices.
-Builders started more homes in 4 of 10 regions, and trimmed starts in 3 regions. The Northeast, Southeast and Northwest regions are all reporting increased starts in the 8% to 9% range. The Southern Florida region reported the largest increase in starts this month. Notable declines in start rates were reported in the Midwest, Southern California and Northern Florida.
For more information, visit www.realestateconsulting.com.
For more top stories on RISMedia.com, don’t miss:
Taking Advantage of Negotiation – U.S. Homebuyers Paid $7,039 Less Than Listing Price in July
Taking Responsibility for Communication
The U.S. Metros Least Touched by Recession
A combination of stable home prices and sizable sectors in health care, energy, government, and education kept these metropolitan areas relatively stable
America's strongest economies have one thing in common—home prices that never got too hot or too cold.
Home prices in metros such as San Antonio , Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh , Rochester , Little Rock , Ark. , and Baton Rouge , La. , remained steady through boom and bust. Although no metropolitan area entirely avoided the economic downturn, the most resilient metros were protected by a potent mix of recession-resistant jobs.
The upstate New York areas of Syracuse , Rochester , Albany , and Buffalo suffered from declining jobs in manufacturing, but got significant boosts from sizable health-care, education, and government sectors. Construction is booming in Baton Rouge , Louisiana 's capital, as firms take advantage of financing for post-Katrina hurricane recovery work and service-related companies expand to meet the needs of a growing population. Omaha and the state of Iowa have relatively strong insurance sectors.
Texas, the last state to enter recession, has been bolstered by its oil and gas industries—which have also helped Oklahoma , North Dakota , and Louisiana . Texas also has many other things going for it, including affordable home prices and relatively low wages, which attract corporations.
BusinessWeek.com used data and analysis from the Brookings Institution's new MetroMonitor to come up with the nation's 40 strongest economies. The MetroMonitor, which measures the nation's health on a quarterly basis, ranks the top 100 metros based on job growth, unemployment, gross metropolitan product, and home prices.
A relative boom in Baton Rouge
"No place has been untouched by this recession. This is a change from previous recessions," said Alan Berube, a senior fellow and research director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. "But there's a big difference in losing one-tenth of a percentage and losing 15% of jobs."
Baton Rouge, which was ranked No. 6, "grew jobs every month until August 2009 and in August it only lost nine-tenths of a percent, compared to 5.1% nationally," said Lauren C. Scott, professor emeritus of economics at Louisiana State University .
Scott said $5.1 billion of construction projects have been announced or are under construction in the Baton Rouge metro, including a new plant for French chemical company SNF and the expansion of an ExxonMobil (XOM) chemical plant.
"One nice thing after another thing happened that has countered what's happening in the rest of the country," Scott said.
Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University in Omaha , who studies much of the nation's energy and farm belts, said the strong dollar early this year hurt farm exports. "But the dollar has now weakened significantly and that will be good for the farm sector and energy commodities," Goss said. "I think 2010 is going to be much better than 2009. But we are still not going to have a lot of job gains.
A 22-year unemployment high in Texas
Although the metros in the ranking are strong by relative standards, their unemployment rates in many cases are now peaking because they entered the recession late. Texas , which had 5 metros in our top 10, including No. 1 San Antonio , is a good example.
The unemployment rate in Texas hit 8.2% in September, rising above 8% for the first time in 22 years. But that's a very low unemployment rate, compared to the national rate of 9.8% or to Nevada 's 13.3% rate.
Texas is unlikely to face a prolonged downturn, said Terry Clower, an economist at the University of North Texas . The state's affordable cost of living make it attractive to new residents and corporations, the largest of which tend to be based near Houston and Dallas.
"It's perceived as a low-cost place to do business," Clower said. "Because housing is affordable, the wage rates reflect that."
Marisa Di Natale, a director at Moody's Economy.com, said late arrivals to the recession will generally face mild downturns.
These metros "haven't had a big erosion in housing wealth, which has kept consumer spending stronger than it would otherwise be," Di Natale said.
Dallas-Fort Worth- Arlington , TX
Overall rank: 5
The sprawling, vibrant, and diverse metro has a major international airport, professional sports teams, and large corporations. It is home to ExxonMobil, J.C. Penney, and TXU Energy. Employment in the Dallas metro peaked in the second quarter of last year. Gross metropolitan product in the second quarter was down just 1.7% from the peak in the third quarter of 2008. Home prices grew 3% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. And the unemployment rate in June was 8.2%, up 3.1 points from a year earlier. (Please see below for the various criteria used by the Brookings Institution to determine the overall ranking.)
Job growth (since peak) rank: 13
Gross Metro Product (since peak) rank: 11
Unemployment change (year over year) rank: 32
Home price change (year over year) rank: 3
The link below will allow you to view the entire list of the 40 strongest economies
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/10/1022_40_strongest_us_metro_economies/2.htm
Big Rebound in Existing-Home Sales Shows First-Time Buyer Momentum
RISMEDIA, October 26, 2009—Existing-home sales bounced back strongly in September with first-time buyers driving much of the activity, marking five gains in the past six months, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Existing-home sales–including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops–jumped 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units in September from a level of 5.10 million in August, and are 9.2% higher than the 5.10 million-unit pace in September 2008. Sales activity is at the highest level in over two years, since it hit 5.73 million in July 2007.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said favorable conditions matched with a tax credit are boosting home sales. “Much of the momentum is from people responding to the first-time buyer tax credit, which is freeing many sellers to make a trade and buy another home,” he said. “We are hopeful the tax credit will be extended and possibly expanded to more buyers, at least through the middle of next year, because the rising sales momentum needs to continue for a few additional quarters until we reach a point of a self-sustaining recovery.”
Even with the improvement, Yun said the market is underperforming. “Despite spectacular gains in the stock market, principally from the financial sector recovery, most of the 75 million home owning families have more wealth tied to their homes. Home values could soon turn consistently positive and help the broad base of middle-class families, but we are not there yet,” he said. “We’re getting early indications of price stabilization, but we need a steady supply of qualified buyers to meaningfully bring inventories down and return us to a period of normal, steady price growth and to fully remove consumer fears, which would then revive the broader economy. Without a firm foundation for middle-class wealth recovery, the post-recession economic growth likely will be one of the weakest in U.S. history.”
Early information from a large annual consumer study to be released November 13, the 2009 National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, shows that first-time home buyers accounted for more than 45% of home sales during the past year. A separate practitioner survey shows that distressed homes accounted for 29% of transactions in September.
NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth, said affordability conditions remain historically high. “Potential first-time buyers can take heart in that affordability conditions this year are the highest on record dating back to 1970, but with the first-time buyer tax credit scheduled to expire at the end of next month, people could hold back from entering the market,” he said. “Our read is that housing overshot on the downside because homes are selling for less than replacement construction costs in much of the country, and the home price-to-income ratio has fallen below the historical average,” McMillan said.
Total housing inventory at the end of September fell 7.5% to 3.63 million existing homes available for sale, which represents an 7.8-month supply at the current sales pace, down from an 9.3-month supply in August. Unsold inventory totals are 15.0% below a year ago.
“The current housing supply is the lowest we’ve seen in two and a half years,” Yun said. “If we could continue to absorb inventory at this pace, home prices would return to normal, modest appreciation patterns next year.
According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 5.06% in September from 5.19% in August; the rate was 6.04% in September 2008. The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $174,900 in September, which is 8.5% lower than September 2008. Distressed properties continue to downwardly distort the median price because they generally sell at a discount relative to traditional homes in the same area.
Single-family home sales rose 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million in September from a pace of 4.47 million in August, and are 7.7% above the 4.54 million-unit level in September 2008. The median existing single-family home price was $174,900 in September, which is 8.1% below a year ago. Existing condominium and co-op sales jumped 9.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 680,000 units in September from 620,000 in August, and are 9.7% above the 561,000-unit pace a year ago. The median existing condo price was $175,100 in September, down 11.7% from September 2008.
Northeast
Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast increased 4.4% to an annual level of 950,000 in September, and are 11.8% higher than September 2008. The median price in the Northeast was $234,700, down 7.0% from a year ago.
Midwest
Existing-home sales in the Midwest jumped 9.6% in September to a pace of 1.25 million and are 7.8% above a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $147,600, which is 1.0% below September 2008.
South
In the South, existing-home sales rose 9.0% to an annual level of 2.06 million in September and are 10.8% higher than September 2008. The median price in the South was $153,500, down 7.6% from a year ago.
West
Existing-home sales in the West surged 13.0% to an annual rate of 1.30 million in September and are 5.7% above a year ago. The median price in the West was $219,000, which is 15.0% below September 2008.
For more information, visit www.realtor.org.
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Brian great information you have is excellent time purchase a home I hope you had a great holiday looking forward to 2010 
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