California Home Price Outlook

2010 March 18

In the April 2010 issue of Money magazine, they produced a table projecting where home prices may be at the end of the year. We took the home values from six California cities in this data table and produced the graph below. The good news for San Diego homeowners is that they projected San Diego’s median home price to just decline -0.3%.

California Home Price Outlook

California Home Price Outlook

Orange County California real estate attorneys

San Diego Home Values Jump Up 13 percent

2010 March 17

San Diego homes for sale

San Diego homes for sale

In a just released report, MDA DataQuick showed that from January 2009 to January 2010 the San Diego median home price increased 5.6 percent, to $322,000. But, the real news is that on a year-over-year basis, median home price was up by 13 percent! As for the number of homes sold in San Diego, year over year, the amount was off  0.3%.

To me, a 13% San Diego home appreciation year over year would be more believable if it was negative 13%! It seems that in San Diego, the homes under $400,000 are selling quite well. The mid to upper end homes are are still languishing. Many investors are getting back into the market usually with all cash offers on lower end homes that can show a ‘better than CD ‘ rate of return. Other factors to consider are that the government buyers incentives end on April 30 and this, just like the Cash for Clunkers program, may be pulling from later in the year sales. If this is the case, we could see a marked slowdown starting in May. read more…

New Home Starts Fall

2010 March 16

new home starts

new home starts

The Commerce Department reported this morning that housing starts fell about 5.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 575,000 in February. Zach Pandl, a Nomura Securities Economist wrote in a note to clients: “The decline in February likely reflected, at least in part, inclement heavy snow across much of the country.  Although the February starts report was slightly better than expected, in our view, the construction recovery more broadly remains very disappointing, and yesterday’s decline in homebuilder sentiment suggests firms see little reason for optimism about the outlook.”

Sacramento California attorney

Home Mortgages Foreclosure Problems

2010 March 16
home foreclosures

home foreclosures

Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest servicer of mortgages, said that it had increased the number of permanent mortgage modifications to 12,700 last month from 3,200 in December. BofA said an additional 13,700 permanent modifications were in their final stage. BofA holds about 1 million mortgages that are at least 60 days delinquent

Nationwide, about 4 million homeowners are 90 days or more delinquent on their mortgages or in foreclosure proceedings, according to Moody’s Economy.com

read more…

San Diego real estate – Some Bargains But No Bottom

2010 March 15

San Diego housing market

San Diego housing market

It should be clear that, on average, now is not yet the time to safely find a San Diego real estate bargain. There are certainly good buys for those who do their homework, whether it be for a personal residence or investment, but there are still many pitfalls. People who have bought in San Diego and certain other metro areas such as New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles in the last 3 years did so convinced they were getting the bargains, only to find they were catching a falling knife.

Dallas Texas attorneys

California Million Dollar Home Sales Fall 68 Percent

2010 March 14
jumbo home loans

jumbo home loans

The jumbo mortgage market is in poor shape and there just is no real financing out there. What jumbo mortgage financing there is, is expense and much more difficult to qualify for.

Over million dollar home sales in California:

2005 – 57,773
2006 – 50,010
2007 – 42,506
2008 – 24,436
2009 – 18,621

San Jose California real estate lawyer