Prices are Low! Mortgages Cheap! But You Can't Get One

With home values continuing to fall, and mortgage interest rates at record lows, you might think it's a buyers market these days. You would be wrong. According to the Federal Reserve (via CNN), nearly a quarter of Americans who apply for home loans are being turned down.

"Good borrowers with one or two blemishes on their credit are being denied credit," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

The denial rates tell only half the story. Many potential buyers aren't even applying for loans because they assume they can't get one.

"A lot of people know it's very difficult to get a mortgage and they're not even trying," said Alan Rosenbaum, CEO of GuardHill Financial, a New York-based mortgage broker.

That shows up in credit scores for loans financed with backing from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The average credit score has risen to 760 from 720 a few years ago. For FHA loans, the average score has gone to 700 from 660. Loans made to borrowers with sub-620 scores are almost nonexistent.

Another factor keeping people out of the mortgage market is that lenders now require much more up-front cash. The median down payment for purchase is about 15%. During the housing boom, it approached zero.

Read more at CNN.com…

Home Prices Plummet in Most Big US Cities

According to reports, home prices have fallen to their lowest point since the housing bubble burst years ago. Values dropped in most major cities and are expected to fall further. Not great news for homeowners…

From Yahoo Finance:

High unemployment, stricter lending rules and fears that prices will continue to fall are among the reasons why few people are buying homes. A rising number of foreclosures are also weighing down prices. And as more people get stuck in depreciating homes, housing could slow the economy.

Across the country, the housing industry is recovering unevenly. Many of the cities now setting new lows have been struggling with high unemployment, more foreclosures and, in some cases, a delayed response to the housing bust in 2006 and 2007.

Homes in more established areas -- those that had little room to build during the housing boom -- are doing a better job holding their value. Coastal cities in California and Northeast are seeing much smaller price declines. In Washington and San Diego, home prices even rose over the past year.

Still, many people who want to buy can't. Nearly 25 percent of households cannot move because they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth, according to Capital Economics. An additional 25 percent can't qualify for a new mortgage because selling their homes would leave them with too little money for a down payment.

"We're likely to see new lows hit across most major markets at some point in 2011," said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. "We're afraid of all this turning into another vicious cycle."

Housing prices in all but one of the 20 cities tracked by Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller fell in December from November. And the overall index declined for the sixth straight month. Washington was the only metro area where prices rose month to month.

Continue reading at Yahoo.com...

Greenspan Says Decline in U.S. Home Prices Might Bring Return of Recession

Over the weekend former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” to discuss the economy and housing market. He asserted that the slowing recovery felt like a “quasi-recession” and that the economy might have more problems if home prices decline.

Slowing economic growth, and a decline in housing activity following the expiration of a government tax credit, have raised fears that the economy could return to a recession before completing its recovery from the worst downturn since the 1930s.

The former U.S. central bank chairman said that most economists expect “a small dip” in home prices. The National Association of Realtors reported that the pace of home sales fell in June for a second month. Homes are selling at an annual rate of 5.37 million, and the group’s chief economist Lawrence Yun said transactions will be “very low” in coming months.

“If home prices stay stable, then I think we will skirt the worst of the housing problem,” Greenspan said. “But right under this current price level, mainly 5, 7 or 8 percent below, is a very large block of mortgages, which are under water, so to speak, or could be under water. And that would induce a major increase in foreclosures, foreclosures would feed on the weakness in prices, and it would create a problem.”

Continue reading at Bloomberg.com…

Home Prices in Feb Showed First Annual Gain in 3 Years

In the last few days there have been a handful of announcements with good new for our economy. In addition job growth, home prices in the U.S. showed a rise in the month of February, which is the first time we have seen an increase in three years. As this ABC News story explains, although this is a good sign, many economists have been quick to warn Americans not to assume the housing market is rebounding already.

Despite the 0.6 percent increase on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 11 of the 20 cities in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index showed declines.

The last time prices rose on a year-over-year basis was December 2006. But economists polled by Thomson Reuters had predicted prices to rise 1.2 percent in February.

Home prices are up more than 3 percent from the bottom in May 2009, but still are 30 percent below the May 2006 peak.

Las Vegas saw the largest annual drop at almost 15 percent. San Francisco posted the biggest gain, at about 12 percent.

"These data point to a risk that home prices could decline further before experiencing any sustained gains," David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, said in a statement.

U.S. Home Prices Drop Again as Concern Over Appraisals Grows

According to Bloomberg.com home prices this country fell another 6.8 percent across the country last month. As many experts have predicted, the ongoing rise in foreclosures and increasing unemployment rates are stalling the recovery of the U.S. real estate industry.

Measured monthly, the average price fell 0.1 percent from March, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said today. The number was projected to drop 0.4 percent in April, according to the median forecast of 15 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

The housing slump has reduced the median price of an existing home 26 percent from the July 2006 peak, pushing affordability to near record levels. Prospective buyers are now being constrained by rising mortgage rates, the highest unemployment since 1983 and concern the housing rebound will be anemic.

While U.S. builders increased housing starts by 17 percent in May to an annual rate of 532,000, a May 26 report from S&P/Case-Shiller showed home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 18.7 percent in March from the same month last year.

On a related note, another recent Bloomberg article also reported that home price recovery may be undermined by appraisals.

Flawed appraisals are derailing real estate sales and depressing values across the U.S., the National Association of Realtors said yesterday as it reported that existing home prices declined again.

“It’s pointing to thousands of delayed or canceled transactions,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the Chicago- based Realtors group, said in an interview. “We’ve had a massive inundation from members saying this is a big problem.”

Appraisal rules that went into effect on May 1 require lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to set up a firewall between appraisers and loan officers to prevent improper influence. The rules are the result of an agreement between the mortgage buyers and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who said an investigation found appraisers inflated values under pressure from lenders.

The agreement mandates that banks order a second appraisal on 10 percent of the loans they sell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and warns against accepting the higher of any two valuations. The guidelines have led to more conservative valuations by many appraisers and a “chill” in lending, according to John Brennan, research director at the Appraisal Foundation, a Washington-based trade group. A low appraisal is one that comes in under the price a prospective buyer has agreed to pay for a property.