September 25th, 2012 2:20 PM by Andrew Walter May CEO
October 2012
Raleigh Real Estate picking up
As many of you know, we are conservative in our fiscal views on housing. However, after seeing all the market trends we’re starting to feel better about the housing market. After three years of neglect, the federal government has introduced many new programs targeted at the fiscally troubled.
These programs often times don’t require an appraisal; don’t require the same income; and require no assets. While this is the same way we got into this mess, no-doc loans, it appears to be stabilizing the market for those most likely to default.
If you have good assets, a low Loan-to-Value, and great credit and income you’ll be subjected to the refinance requirements that are historically the toughest in a long time.
The one interesting aspect of qualifying for these “election year” refinance loans is that you must have had your loan sold to Freddie/Fannie prior to June 2009. Someone really has no idea how to fix the economy when they put that requirement in there. But that’s what you get when the federal government is the only lender for below $417,000 loan sizes.
If you are thinking about upgrading your home location or size, here’s some interesting data for you to consider:
August 2012 Year to Date Data in Wake County:
1) Home prices up 2.5% (Median)
2) Unit sales up 22% (8800 sales)
3) Percent of original list price received 94.6%
4) Days on market dropped 7 days to 114 days on market
5) Months of inventory is down 43% to 5 months of housing inventory on market
Case Schiller Weis Indices (Top 20 markets in the USA):
The top 20 markets in the US are priced where we were in August of 2003. So, while home prices are improving, we’re still far away from the peak of June 2006. That’s when home prices in the top 20 markets peaked. In general, home prices continue to decline across the US, as a result of poor policy, and a 100% control of the mortgage market from the federal government for below $417k loans.