Marion Skubi

February Drop Snaps Three Straight Months of Gains; Largest Decline Since July

From Reuters/MSN.com: WASHINGTON — Sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell unexpectedly sharply in February and prices fell to their lowest in nearly nine years, an industry group said Monday.

The National Association of Realtors said sales fell 9.6 percent month over month to an annual rate of 4.88 million units, snapping three straight months of gains. The percentage decline was the largest since July.

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RISMEDIA, March 18, 2011—While affordable housing prices, ample inventories, and historically low interest rates signal ‘buyer’s market’ for investors or move-up buyers in many U.S. markets, inexperienced first-time buyers may not know if the time is right to make a move into real estate.

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RISMEDIA, March 16, 2011—After four consecutive months hovering at the same low level, builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes improved by a single point in March 2011, rising to 17 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This is the highest level the HMI has reached since May 2010, when the survey period corresponded with the final days of the federal home buyer tax credit program.

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The majority of America’s potential homebuyers and sellers — 68 percent — believe that the real estate market and property values will recover in the next year or two, according to a survey released recently by Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, Inc., a Prudential Financial, Inc. [NYSE:PRU] company.  This exceeds the 47 percent of Americans who expected house prices would rise in a similar survey conducted in April 2010, underscoring a more bullish outlook for the real estate market today.   In addition, 86 percent of Americans believe real estate is a good investment despite the market volatility of the past few years. The Prudential Real Estate Outlook Survey of 1,253 Americans between the ages of 25-64 in the market for buying a home was conducted Jan. 20-27, 2011.

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Washington, DC, February 28, 2011 Pending home sales eased moderately in January for the second straight month, but remain 20.6 percent above the cyclical low last June, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

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From RealTrends.com: Real-Time Housing Market Update

Spring 2011 is imminent and with it the much-anticipated Spring Real Estate Market. While the headline pricing metric 90-day rolling average still shows monthly declines, week-over-week data are beginning to show signs of improvement, indicating a good start to what is, typically, the strongest sales period of the calendar year.

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Washington, DC, February 23, 2011   The uptrend in existing-home sales continues, with January sales rising for the third consecutive month with a pace that is now above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

Existing-home sales¹, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million in January from a downwardly revised 5.22 million in December, and are 5.3 percent above the 5.09 million level in January 2010. This is the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier.

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Condo and townhome sales rose in sales from last year with 60 sales in the 4th Quarter of 2009 and 76 in the same Quarter of 2010; however, the median price dipped from $250,000 in the 4th Quarter of 2009 to $232,500 or an 8% drop in the same Quarter of 2010. Land sales slowed from 43 in the 4th Quarter of 2009 to 32 in the most recent 2010 Quarter with prices down from a median of $160,000 in 2009 to a median of $134,500 in 2010.

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