There is a new scam using Craigslist targeting renters offering amazing deals, but after they collect your deposit, they disappear.
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In a surprising twist, some of the best housing numbers in eight months came out recently. We checked with Editor in Chief of AOL Real Estate Laura Goldstein. She cautioned against getting too excited, too quickly. Underlying the numbers might be a seasonal uptick and stalled foreclosures, which tend to suppress prices.
We’ll continue to stay on the story, but she suspects we won’t know anytime soon whether the favorable numbers will become a trend. In the meantime, it’s a welcome aberration, though not one enjoyed in all metro markets.
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Fewer Americans had their homes repossessed by banks or were put on notice for being behind on their mortgage payments in April compared to a year ago.
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Home values are way down since the housing market hit its peak in 2006. The S&P/Case-Shiller Price Index, which is a measure of the home values in 20 metropolitan statistical areas is down by nearly a third since the market peaked. Although home prices were briefly buoyed by the 2009 and 2010 home buyer tax credits, they have now hit double dip territory, at least according to Case-Shiller. Different measures of home prices have yet to show a double dip, but they are all trending downward.
Since 2001, the average home equity has declined from 61 percent to 38 percent as of the first quarter of 2011. A recent report from Harvard showed that home equity went from $14.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2006 to $6.3 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010. Home equity is now at the lowest level since World War II according to a new study from the Federal Reserve. By any measurement, this is pretty much an utter disaster.
A CoreLogic report released recently showed that 10.9 million American homeowners with mortgages are underwater (owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth). This accounts for 22.7 percent of all residential homes with mortgages. An additional 2.4 million more borrowers had less than five percent home equity.
Although price declines are not evenly spread, many people won’t recover their home equity for years, if at all. This problem is especially acute for many baby boomers who are approaching retirement age. Some people planned to fund their retirement with home equity and may have to delay those plans due to declining home values.
We’d love to hear your feedback on this situation. Will declining home values delay or change any retirement plans you had made? Are you, or someone you know, currently dealing with an underwater mortgage? Use the comment link below to sound off about the housing situation and how it’s affected you or your family. Your email address will never appear on our site along with your comments.
Pending home sales fell substantially in April with unusual weather and continued economic softness hindering a recovery in the housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The trade association, which has more than 1.2 million members, said its pending home sales index, which is based on contracts signed, decreased 11.6% to 81.9 for April from a downwardly revised 92.6 for March. NAR said the index is 26.5% lower than 111.5 for the year-earlier April, when homebuyers where rushing to qualify for the expiring federal tax credit.
Meanwhile, Foreclosure starts and delinquencies dropped significantly from a year ago, according to Lender Processing Services’ (LPS: 26.03 0.00%) Mortgage Monitor report.
Servicers started 187,423 foreclosures in April, down 14.7% from a year ago and down 31% from March.
Total delinquencies, at 7.97%, are down 16.3% from a year ago but up 2.4% from March, according to the report.
Still, more mortgages are seriously delinquent when compared to prior years. In January 2009, just 10% of delinquent mortgages were in the 12 months or more delinquent bucket.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “Even with very favorable affordability conditions, job growth and a pent-up demand from abnormally low household formation during the past three years, the recovery will continue to be uneven and sluggish given the ongoing credit constraints.”