Keeping You

Current
By
Madeleine Romanello

March 2008
Supply
 Beazer Homes USA
Inc., one of the
nation’s largest home
builders, announced
Friday that it will shut
down operations in
several
major markets.
Source: The Associated Press

Supply
 The supply of homes available for sale in
most major metropolitan areas rose only
slightly in January…
Total listings of homes in 29
metro areas at the end of last
month were up 1.1% from a
month earlier, according to
figures compiled by ZipRealty
Inc. Listings normally rise about
5% in January from December,
said Thomas Lawler, a housing
economist in Leesburg, Va.

Source: Wall Street Journal, James R. Hagerty

Supply
Source: NAR

Demand
 “People have been waiting to buy a house
because they want to see where the floor
Now
is… that lower rates are a
factor, the question
becomes: At what point
will buyers be compelled
to act, thinking they are
getting a price they can
live with and a rate they
do not want to miss?”
- Susanne Cannon
Director of the Real Estate Center DePaul University

Source: New York Times, David Streitfeld

Demand
Source: NAR

Mortgaging
 <>

Source: Bankrate.com

Mortgaging
% of a person's monthly income that will
be needed to make a house payment

Source: NAR

Affordability
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told
lawmakers Tuesday he expects the
downtrodden U.S. housing sector to improve
by the end of the year, a senator who
participated in the closed-door meeting said.
"He let us believe that
the housing situation
should begin to
ameliorate by the end of
the year," said Sen. Pete
Domenici, a New Mexico
Republican.
Source: Reuters

Market
REALTrends “The Pulse”
a survey of the leading broker/owners of the real estate industry

The results indicated that

participants foresee an
improvement in their various
markets. The survey revealed
an overwhelming 63 percent of
participants either somewhat
or strongly agree that there is
an improvement in their
marketplace.
Source: Real Trends

Market
Value
 “We are in an historic
housing bust right
now,” says creator of
the index Robert J.
Shiller,
the chief economist
at MacroMarkets and
a professor at Yale.

Source: Reuters News, Al Yoon

Value
Source: BusinessWeek

Value
 The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive for Zillow.com. Beneath each pie chart is Zillow.com's
estimate of the actual change in house prices for the region over the past year.

Source: BusinessWeek

Value
 "This survey reveals that despite the data to the contrary,
people either aren't paying attention to their housing
market or are in denial about their own home's value,"
said Stan Humphries, Zillow.com vice president of data &
analytics. "It's a visceral reaction; you lock into the highest
price you ever heard, and you're going to hang onto it,"
Hugh Moore, a principal at Guerite Advisors said. "It's a
grieving process. First you go through denial and
“Acceptance is the disbelief.”

last
step you get to.”

Source: CNN Money.com, Chris Isidore

Value
 “If you have to sell, cut
your prices aggressively
now.”

Source: BusinessWeek

Value
Source: New York Times

Value
 www.realtor.org/gapublic.nsf/pages/economic _stimulus

All the information you

need on the

Economic
Stimulus
Package
President Bush signed
into law on February
13th

Mortgaging
 Banks are tightening lending
standards
Source: Federal Reserve

2002 2005 2008

Mortgaging
 Many of the country's largest mortgage lenders are imposing
loan restrictions in entire counties or Zip codes that they rank as
risky or "declining."

On Jan. 25, Countrywide Bank

sent mortgage brokers a list that
categorized hundreds of
counties as "soft markets" with
rankings from 1 to 5, in
ascending order of perceived
risk. In areas rated
4 and 5 -- roughly 100 counties
in metropolitan areas nationwide
-- Countrywide said it will now
require down payments that are
5 percentage points higher than
from
Source: most applicants.
Washington Post, Kenneth R.Harney

Mortgaging
Foreclosure Increase
% of all loans in foreclosure 3rd quarter

Source: Mortgage Bankers Association (02/08)

Foreclosures
Project Lifeline
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc.,
Countrywide Financial Corp., JPMorgan Chase &
Co., Washington Mutual Inc., and Wells Fargo &
Co. have agreed to allow some home owners to
suspend foreclosures for 30 days, giving them
time to work out affordable loans.

Source: The Associated Press, Marcy Gordon

Foreclosures
 “Existing modification efforts are
insufficient. MBA data show that
foreclosures are outstripping modifications
7 to 1. For the subprime ARMs that are at
the root of the current crisis, foreclosures
outnumber modifications 13 to 1.”

Foreclosures
 "First American
CoreLogic's Core
Mortgage Risk Index
tracks the risk of
mortgage
delinquencies based
on housing prices,
local economic
conditions and fraud,
increased in Q1'08 by
23% from Q4'07 and
is expected to
continue rising during
the next 18 months.”
Source: Inman News

Foreclosures
 Reporter: "Sir, is the worst over? Will
2008 have fewer foreclosures ... “

Henry Paulson: "... in terms of sub-

prime and the resets, the worst isn't
over, the worst is just beginning. We
all know that."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Foreclosures
Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's
Economy.com, speaking at the Reuters Housing
Summit in New York. , said he expects home sales to
hit bottom this spring.
He also expects
house prices to hit
bottom in the spring
of 2009.
However, a rapidly
deteriorating U.S.
economy will cause
home prices to drop
by 20 percent from
their peak.
Source: Reuters, Julie Haviv and Jennifer Ablan

Market
Good Investment?

I would say
real estate
has been a
great
investment
over the last
5 years!

Value
 G E ! !!
FRO NT PA
Blogger Jeff Geoghan said the pieces are in place for
the market to begin a recovery. Banks have kept
mortgage rates low and the government's stimulus
package includes aggressive changes to Federal
Housing Authority programs. However, the gap
between list prices for homes and actual prices paid
remains too wide, Geoghan said Friday. That gap grew
last winter to more than $58,000 by February 2007, he
said. It narrowed to $14,000 in August as the subprime
crisis became national news, but then list prices
headed up again, while actual sale prices stayed down.
The difference between average list price and average
sale price reached about $38,000 in December before
Jeff R. Geoghan MBA narrowing to $36,000 in January. January's data is
encouraging, yet "Lancaster County continues to resist
a price correction," Geoghan said.

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