The June 2011 housing stats are now available in Pinellas County by clicking the link below.

Some good trends are starting to form in Pinellas, the number of single family homes available fell to 4655 in June, the number of sales were up slightly from 754 in May to 786, which is slightly lower than the numbers in 2010, sales in June 2010 were 802 units. The median home sales price was up from May 2010 now at $132,100 but it’s still lower than 2010 pricing by -$8.8%.

For full details click on the link below.

June MLS stats 2011 Click to view PFD

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.

That would ordinarily suggest improving fortunes for U.S. homeowners, but the decline had less to do with any turnaround in the housing market than with foreclosure processing delays that appear to be getting worse. That is threatening to drag out a housing recovery, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

It’s taking longer for lenders to move against homeowners who have stopped paying their mortgage and to take back homes already in some stage of the foreclosure process. In states like New York, for example, it now takes an average of more than two years for a home to go from the initial stage of foreclosure to being repossessed by a bank, the firm said.

Those delays, partly due to banks working through foreclosure documentation problems that came to light last fall, means it could take many more years for lenders to deal with a backlog of seriously delinquent properties, which numbers up to 3.7 million, by some estimates.

“It’s going to take between three to four years just to get those loans into foreclosure at our current pace,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “And that doesn’t spell good news for the housing market.”

Banks repossessed 69,532 homes last month, down 5 percent from March and down 25 percent compared with April of last year, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks warnings sent to homeowners throughout the foreclosure process.

The number of properties receiving an initial notice of default fell to 63,422, down 14 percent from March and down 39 percent from April 2010.

Homes scheduled for auction for the first time also declined in April, falling to 86,304. That’s down 7 percent from March and 37 percent below April of last year.

A weak housing market, sliding home prices and pressure on lenders to give troubled homeowners more time to work out new payment arrangements or loan terms have all contributed to the longer time frame for foreclosures.

Many banks also have taken steps to revisit thousands of foreclosure cases since last fall, delaying the processing of new foreclosures. The logjam has been compounded by court delays in states like Florida, New York and New Jersey, where a judge must approve foreclosures.

In the first three months of this year, it took an average of 400 days for a U.S. home to go from receiving an initial notice of default to being foreclosed on, RealtyTrac said.

That’s up from an average of 340 days in the same period last year and more than double the 151-day average in the first quarter of 2007.

The delays are even lengthier at the state level. In New York and New Jersey, the foreclosure process took more than 900 days, on average, to run its course in the first quarter – more than three times the average length of time in the first quarter of 2007 for both states.

In Florida, one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, the process took an average of 619 days in the first quarter, up from 470 days a year earlier. In the first quarter of 2007, it took an average of 169 days for the process to play out, RealtyTrac said.

Barring a pickup in the pace of foreclosures, it is likely fewer homes will be repossessed this year than in 2010, when lenders took back more than a million, Sharga said.

Despite the drop in foreclosure activity last month, several states continue to have outsized foreclosure rates.

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every 97 households receiving a foreclosure notice in April. It also bucked the overall national trend, as bank repossessions jumped 23 percent from March and climbed 12 percent from April of last year, RealtyTrac said.

Lenders may have elected to pick up the pace of foreclosures in Nevada to take advantage of brisk foreclosure sales in Las Vegas. In March, sales of previously occupied homes in Las Vegas hit a five-year high, with distressed properties accounting for 69 percent of sales, according to DataQuick.

February 2011 statistics Pinellas County Click Here to download

The real estate market in Pinellas County is showing more signs of stabilization. For the month of
February sales were up for both single family and condo, likely a result of the increases in pending
sales in January. Listings were down across the board and the median sales price remains relatively
unchanged. During the first half of 2010 the first time homebuyer tax credit was impacting closings
while the later tax credit was beginning to affect pending contracts. Since there is no longer a tax
credit, we might have expected sales and contracts to be lower; however sales were up nearly 25%
and pending contracts increase by 17%. Pinellas County’s fire sale prices and low interest rates are
the big driver now in spite of the continued high jobless rate.

For February 2011 single family home sales were up nearly 20% as compared to the same time period
last year. The median sales price for single family homes was down $30,000 or 30% from February
2010, however it remained nearly constant from last month. Listings for single family homes fell 3%
from February 2010. In the first two months of 2010 the median sales price was stagnant, but saw a
modest jump in March.
Condo sales were up almost 24% from February 2010 to February 2011. The median sales price
trended similar to single family homes, declining 28% for the month of February, as compared to
February 2010. However, there was a modest increase from January 2010. Condo listings were down
about 8% from February 2010 to February 2011. This also marks the seventh straight month condo
listings have decreased.

Overall residential market sales increased by almost 25% from February 2010 to February 2011, and
were up 13% from month to month. Overall residential listings were down about 5% since February
2010. The median sales price for residential properties plummeted nearly 29% year over year making
Pinellas County one of the best bargains in the nation.
Cash is still king for the local market, indicating that likely many sales are to investors. There should
start being some modest increases in sales price as the decrease in listings creates more upward
pressure on the sales price. Another bright spot in the market for the month was the modest increase in
non-distressed sales versus a relatively stagnant number of distressed sales.

February 2011 statistics Pinellas County Click Here to download

While 2010 was not a stellar year for new home sales, it ended on a positive note: December home sales rose 17.5 percent over November home sales on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In December, there were 329,000 home sales on a seasonally adjusted basis, strongly surpassing economists’ predictions of 299,000 sales.

While a strong uptick in new home sales marked a positive end for 2010, however, the year ended up as the slowest one on record. The estimated total of new homes sold in 2010 was 14.4 percent below the 2009 level, according to the report.

Click Here for Dec 2010 MLS Stats
Is the real estate recovery finally here? The statistics for December 2010 give us indications that it
may or may not be. Traditionally, sales slump around the holidays; however, December 2010 seems
to have bucked the trend, as condo and single family sales are up double digits across the board. On
the other hand, when you start looking at the types of sales, it becomes more evident that the recovery
may not be here quite yet. In December short sales and foreclosures accounted for nearly half of all
sales, when previous statistics have shown that short sales and foreclosures usually account for just
over one third of all sales. The increase in short sale and foreclosure closings is likely a result of the
expiration of the foreclosure moratorium and banks wanting to get REO properties off their books
before the end of the year.
Sales of all residential properties were up 24.4%, or an additional 244 units in December, as
compared to the same time period last year. The median sale price of all residential sales dropped
from $133,000 to $118,000, or down 11% since December 2009. The increase in short sale and
foreclosure closings for December had a strong impact here.
One small bright spot in the market is that this is the fourth straight month that overall residential
listings have dropped. If January’s statistics show a drop for the fifth consecutive month, this may
show signs of a recovery. In previous years, listings tend to jump in January, when the holiday season
comes to an end and kids go back to school. Overall residential listings were up 7.2% from December
2009 to December 2010.
Single family home sales increased almost 29% in December 2010, as compared to December 2009.
This also marks the fourth straight month of increased single family sales. However, the median sales
price fell for single family homes by almost $15,000, or 11% from December 2009. The drop in the
single family median home price is largely a result of the increased closings of short sales and
foreclosures. For December 2010, more than half of all sales were foreclosures or short sales. Single
family listings rose 6.7%, from 5,928 in December 2009 to 6,327 in December 2010.
Condo sales also fared well in December, as sales increased by 18% or 76 additional units sold from
December 2009. While volume is increasing, the median condo sales price fell 19% from December
2009. This represents a drop of almost $24,000 in the median sales price mostly a result of the
increase of foreclosures and short sales. Condo listings were up less than one percent. ]]> http://davidpricerealtor.com/blog/pinellas-county-real-estate-statistics-for-december-2010/feed/ 0 http://davidpricerealtor.com/blog/u-s-housing-prices-overall-are-expected-to-hit-bottom-by-spring-2011/ http://davidpricerealtor.com/blog/u-s-housing-prices-overall-are-expected-to-hit-bottom-by-spring-2011/#comments Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:46:22 +0000 David Price http://davidpricerealtor.com/blog/?p=626

U.S. housing prices overall are expected to hit bottom by spring 2011 and begin a gradual rise in 2012, Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president of housing lender Freddie Mac said on Wednesday.

“I do think we’ll see these housing prices bottom out, maybe by the spring,” Nothaft said.

Nothaft presented Freddie Mac’s January 2011 Economic Outlook to reporters at the annual International Builders’ Show in Orlando.

Nothaft predicted that potential home buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines will start to get back into the market. He said this prediction is bolstered by historically low mortgage interest rates and other positive economic indicators, a small drop in the rate of unemployment, increases in purchases of durable goods and a slight slowing of serious delinquencies feeding the glut of foreclosed housing stock.

“This is the time to come in the market if you’ve got the financial resources and wherewithal,” Nothaft said.

However, the housing market will continue to recover unevenly around the country with regions of Florida, Nevada and California continuing to slog through the effects of the economic bust, he said.

Homebuilders and suppliers at the home builder event, where attendance is off nearly 50 percent since the show was staged in Orlando in 2005 through 2008, viewed the forecast through the lenses of their home communities’ experience of the recession.

“I’ve been in a crash for four years,” millwork supplier Jeff Thompson of Vero Beach, Florida, told Reuters. “But I’m almost seeing a glimmer of light in getting new projects.”

“We’ve pretty much already bottomed out,” said Jeffrey Capogrossi, a custom homebuilder from Columbia, South Carolina, said. “Now, how long we’re going to stay flat is hard to tell.”

Custom home builder Robert Leslie said his company in Fargo, North Dakota, never stopped growing through the national housing bust.

“Our markets, if anything, just leveled off for awhile. So now, they’re starting to move up,” he said.

Freddie Mac and the National Association of Home Builders are projecting a 20 to 21 percent increase in new housing starts – from 475,000 in 2010 to 575,000 in 2011, according to Nothaft and David Crowe, the NAHB’s chief economist.

“Twenty percent may sound like a really big increase, but keep in mind it comes off a very low base,” Nothaft said.

Justifying the projection for new housing starts, Crowe said the national inventory of new homes is at a 40-year low. In addition, Crowe estimated that 2 million people who normally would have moved into their own homes stayed put through the recession, many of them young adults who remained in their parents’ homes or continued to share living quarters with roommates.

“We have an enormous pent-up demand for households,” Crowe said.

Thompson believes Florida, one of the hardest hit states, is well positioned for a resurgence as a result of the precipitous fall in housing prices and appraisals. “You put all that together and Florida has become affordable again like back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s,” Thompson said. “I think there are a lot of opportunities that are coming our way. We are on the cusp.”

(Editing by Greg McCune)