It will be 15 days before you hear the “official” numbers from Arizona Association of Realtors, but you can say you heard it here first.  March existing home sales are up, WAY UP!!!  There were 4200 existing home sales in March which is an increase of nearly 24% over February’s sales.  The bigger news is that the number of homes currently in escrow is close to 7000.  This means that within the next 45 days or so most of these properties will be closing escrow.  If the number of homes in escrow stays consistently at or above about 6500 the monthly sales figures should remain brisk at over 4000 per month.  If all things continue along as they are now, April existing home sales will hit at least 4700.  Even though inventory is still hovering at 56000, months of inventory is now at 13 months and should shrink to 12 months by the end of April.  

Have we hit the bottom?  Can’t say yet, but we should know soon.

Stay tuned….

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority urged homeowners over the age of 60 to carefully weigh their options before tapping into their home equity through reverse mortgages to obtain additional income for their retirement years. The group, formed by a merger of the NASD and some regulatory functions of New York Stock Exchange parent NYSE Group Inc., warned that a reverse mortgage — an interest-bearing loan secured by the equity in a home — can jeopardize their financial futures.

 With a reverse mortgage, a bank makes payments to a homeowner instead of the homeowner making payments to a bank. The loan is repaid, with interest, when the borrower sells the house, moves out or dies. Reverse mortgages have high fees — typically about 7% of the home’s value — and they make it difficult for homeowners to leave the property to their heirs.

 Read the whole article at realestatejournal.com.

For years rapidly rising prices kept many first-time home buyers out of the housing market. But as home values slide further downward and interest rates hover at relatively low levels, it may be time to start looking to buy that first house. That is, if you have a secure job, can afford higher down payments than were required a few years ago and can meet lenders’ much stricter income and credit requirements.

Also, don’t assume the seller is even in the right ballpark with his asking price. Most real-estate agents and sellers only look at comparable sales prices, or “comps,” of similar homes in similar neighborhoods. Take a lesson from property investors and appraisers instead and check out prices from other angles as well.

 To read the whole article go here

White House effort will give homeowners at risk of foreclosure a 30-day reprieve.

If you are a homeowner and you have a loan with one of the following banks:

Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual or Wells Fargo

AND you meet the following criteria you may be able to get a temporary reprieve from foreclosure proceedings:

□          90 days or more overdue on payments

□          have not filed for bankruptcy protection

□          don’t have a foreclosure date set within the next 30 days

□          haven’t vacated the property

□          haven’t used your loan to fund investment property or vacation homes

Read the article at:

http://www.azcentral.com/realestate/articles/0213biz-lifeline0213.html

This article from CNNMoney.com, reports that the economic stimulus plan announced by Congress last Thursday includes provisions that specifically address the mortgage crises. The package proposes lifting the dollar amount of loans that are eligible for purchase by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to $625,000 for 12 months, up from the current $417,000, and then raiding it to $725,000 permanently.  “This will have a big, immediate impact, especially in California where sales have been down most significantly,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Yun added, “There’s a lot of pent-up demand in the market. This will boost confidence among these potential buyers, and some of the people on the fence will start buying.”

Read the whole article here.

So, October stats came in last week and they are on par with September.  The month started off a little stronger at the beginning of the month, but slowed down toward the end of the month.  This is not all that unusual.  There were probably quite a few people that had some issues with financing in September that go pushed to early October.  October sales of existing homes came in at 3457 with an average sale price of $324,000.  Since getting a jumbo loan was and is considerably more difficult these days there is also no real surprise that the average sale price has dropped a bit.  We expect to see the average sale price climb as the mortgage situation gets straightened out.  Looking forward to November we see things staying about the same as October and September.  We expect the number of existing homes sold to be around 3400 for November.