Real Estate News for Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Convicted con artist shows how system flaws could allow him to steal your home. A one-time millionaire with a house on a golf course, Barber was sentenced in October to 12 years in prison for masterminding the largest mortgage fraud ever prosecuted in Missouri, and most other states too, the FBI says. He pleaded guilty to a five-year scam that involved nearly 300 properties in Kansas City, Mo., and victimized more than 80 people. Click here to read more.

Real estate: Who's buying now? The nation is changing. So is the average home buyer. The biggest group of home buyers by far is still married couples, accounting for 61 percent of all homes bought, according to the National Association of Realtors. But single women now purchase 22 percent of all homes. Single men accounted for only 9 percent of purchases. Part of the reason why women have become so big a buying bloc is that more women are single than ever before. The New York Times recently concluded, after an analysis of Census Bureau data, that 51 percent of all American adult women now live without a spouse. And women are much more financially independent than ever. They account for about 57 percent of all college graduates, almost the reverse of the ratio of 40 years ago. During the 10 years through 2005, homeownership among African Americans grew from 44 percent to 48 percent, according to Vredevoogd. Among Hispanics it grew from 43 percent to 49 percent and among Asians, from 51 percent to 60 percent. All these groups made significant progress toward achieving the level of homeownership of 72 percent that the nation as a whole enjoys. Click here to read more.

Foreclosures surge 42 percent in 2006. One out of every 92 households filed for foreclosure in 2006, suggesting that many homeowners are overextended in mortgage debt, group says. The number of homes in the United States foreclosed by lenders rose 42 percent in 2006 from a year earlier in a sign that many homeowners have became overextended in mortgage debt, a real estate information service reported Thursday. More than 1.2 million foreclosure filings were reported nationwide during 2006, which is a rate of one foreclosure filing for every 92 households, according to RealtyTrac, Inc. Colorado, Georgia and Nevada saw the highest foreclosure rates, the study found. Click here to read more.

Housing glut gives buyers upper hand. Amid a continuing glut of homes for sale in most of the country, buyers should have plenty of choices and lots of bargaining power in the spring selling season - typically the busiest time of the year. Many builders and real-estate brokers, for their part, hope the housing market will start recovering this year as buyers respond to price cuts and other sweeteners offered by increasingly nervous sellers. In some markets, agents say, buyer traffic has picked up in the last month or two. But any recovery is likely to be gradual. Donald Tomnitz, chief executive officer of D.R. Horton Inc., a home builder, told investors this week that the market, which began slumping in 2005, may bottom out by mid-2007, but that "we don't see any rapid improvement thereafter." Given all that, sellers should expect buyers to take their time and be tougher negotiators. David Lee, who recently moved to Wenham, Mass., to take up a post as an associate professor of physics at Gordon College, has rented a home for his family and says they plan to be "quite picky and choosy" as they look for a home to buy. Dr. Lee doesn't feel any pressure to decide quickly because he figures prices won't rise in the near term and could fall further. Click here to read more.

C.A.R. Reports Sales Decrease 15.3 Percent in December, Median Price of a Home in California at $567,690, up 3.7 Percent from Year Ago. Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled 450,550 in December at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local REALTOR® associations statewide. Statewide home resale activity decreased 15.3 percent from the 531,910 sales pace recorded in December 2005. “Year-over-year sales declined in most regions last month, albeit at a lesser pace then what we experienced earlier this year,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “The price picture across the state continues to be mixed. Increases were strongest in urban areas that experienced relatively less new home building or strong economic growth in recent years. Prices were weakest where there has been robust home building activity or in those areas of the state that were popular with second-home buyers.” Click here to read more.

~Tina Jan~
Coldwell Banker Kivett-Teeters
1655 E. Sixth St.
Beaumont, CA 92223
Work: 951-845-5520 Ext. 105
Fax: 951-845-4916
Cell: 909-446-2666
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tina.jan@coldwellbanker.com
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