Home Prices Dropping
Mar 25th, 2008 at 6:33 am by Susie
For everyone as a result of the mortgage crisis:
A glut of foreclosed homes of historic proportions is starting to drive down U.S. home prices faster as lenders put more properties on the market and buyers show signs of interest.
The ability of America’s lenders to manage this fire sale will be crucial to determining how long the housing market stays in the dumps — and how quickly blighted neighborhoods can heal. The oversupply is severe: In some major markets, including Las Vegas and San Diego, foreclosure-related sales have accounted for more than 40% of all sales in recent months.
On Monday, new data suggested that pressures like these are starting to drive prices low enough to attract some buyers back into the market. Sales of previously occupied homes jumped 2.9% in February from the month before, the National Association of Realtors said, the first increase since July.
[...] Banks and others holding foreclosed property have concluded “we’ve got to move things” and are finally willing to slash prices, says Thomas Lawler, a housing economist in Leesburg, Va.
The supply is piling up fast. Overall, the total number of lender-owned homes doubled last year but sales grew only 4.4%.
At the same time, the specialist firms that sell foreclosed homes for lenders say banks are sending them additional properties much faster than they can be sold. “They’re coming in [at a rate of] two new properties for every sale,” said Claudia Smith, vice president of operations for First American REO Outsourcing, which is handling roughly 8,000 foreclosed homes for lenders.
How’s that cheap labor going for you now?
. A glut of foreclosed homes of historic proportions is starting to drive down U.S. home prices faster as lenders put more properties on the market and buyers show signs of interest…
Sales of previously occupied homes jumped 2.9% in February from the month before, the National Association of Realtors said, the first increase since July.
So prices are dropping even faster, while they are going up. (At least the resale houses are going up.)
Or is it that seles volume is up while prices are down?
Can’t journalists write or reason clearly any more?