In a report released this morning, home prices continued to show an annual rate of decline in the month of December, according to a report released by Standard and Poor’s , although the pace of the drop in home prices continued to slow. But, prices rose in four of 20 cities in December: Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas. In San Diego home prices were up 2.7%. read more…
Goldman Sachs recently raised its estimates for total losses on commercial mortgage loans to $287 billion, of which %180 billion, or 63 percent, will be absorbed by commercial banks.
But vacancies have been rising sharply, especially for apartments, retail and industrial space. Goldman Sachs now predicts that asset prices will fall in the range of 40 percent on average. Rents are dropping at a 9 percent annualized rate, the worst decline on record.
Houston real estate lawyers
Last week, online real estate valuation researcher Zillow.com released its latest quarterly number on negative equity in major markets. The percentage of homeowners with negative equity appears to be on the decline.
For San Diego County, Zillow found the fourth quarter negative equity rate was 24.7 percent, which was down from the second quarter, when it was 31.6 percent, but higher than the third quarter, when it was 21.6 percent. In metropolitan Las Vegas, for example, 81.3 percent of all homeowners – 256,000 households – were underwater on their mortgages in the fourth quarter. In Phoenix, 61.5 percent of borrowers were in negative territory.
San Francisco real estate lawyers
San Diego-based MDA DataQuick reported yesterday, that an estimated 27,858 new and resale houses and condos were sold statewide last month. That’s compared to 41,837 in December and 29,458 statewide in January 2009. California home sales dipped 33.4 percent in January from December, and 5.4 percent compared to January 2009. read more…
Home Foreclosure Moratoriums Impact Homeowner Associations
The number of foreclosures is huge and Federal and state foreclosure moratoriums abound. The Federal government continues to pressure lenders to work out foreclosure alternatives. With all of this, many troubled homeowners are riding the gravy train.
The media outlets continue show the hard working families with five or six kids being ‘forced’ to leave their home. It makes for good emotional ‘news.’ There is another side to this story though, and once again, the taxpayers (and future generations) end up paying.
Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, talks with Bloomberg’s Betty Liu about the outlook for community banks that have exposure to commercial real estate loans. Warren, speaking from Newton, Massachusetts, also discusses the need for so-called stress tests on community banks. Commercial real estate loans have potential to go sour and wreck the U.S. economy unless regulators prepare now, according to a report from the watchdog for the federal financial rescue program.




