The Pending Home Sales Index is a forward-looking indicator tracked by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). The index rose 5.2 percent to 79.4 based on contracts signed in July from a revised 75.5 in June. This index is based upon signed purchase contracts, not actual closings.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, discusses the Pending Home Sales Index in this three minute video.
11 million residential properties were underwater at the end of the second quarter. This is down 200,000 from the first quarter.
Arizona is the second highest negative equity state with half of Arizona properties in a negative equity position.
This data is provided by CoreLogic and differs slightly from data we reported on August 10
th (
Not So Many Underwater In Q2) that use information from Reuters. The key point is both sources agree that the number of underwater residential properties is lower in Q2 and the primary reason is more of the properties went into foreclosure which takes the out of the underwater pool.
The New York Times has an
analysis of the foreclosure and delinquency situations.
Resource: The New York Times
A quarter of today’s renters have no intention of ever buying a home. A third of the remaining 75 percent plan to wait two or more years. Read the entire article by clicking on the REALTOR®Mag link below.
Equity firms and groups of wealthy investors are having difficulty in finding solid investments so many have turned to flipping. Buying foreclosed properties, fixing them up and then selling them has become the investment of the day.
However the profits from flipping are diminishing as more people seek foreclosed properties. The average difference between a home’s sale price at auction and its actual value was 28 percent in January of ’09 but is now 21.6 percent.
As these investors buy up foreclosed properties, we stand to gain for they help reduce the inventory of low priced properties.
The big news today is the major fall in existing home sales. The first article I saw was from the
BBC. Then
The New York Times picked it up and then
REALTOR®Mag.
The main point of the reports is that July existing home sales fell to an annualized rate of 3.83 million units down from a revised June level of 5.26 million units in June. This is the lowest level since May of 1995.
