Lender Processing Services (LPS) says that they track home sales on a monthy basis and their home price index gives them a quick read on changes to the market. Their data shows that house price declines were widespread, throughout the country, in August but that higher priced homes declined less than lower priced homes. Of all the cities that they track with their index the city with the largest home price decline in August was Gainesville, Georgia.

The city with the largest price decline since the beginning of this year, as measured by LPS is Atlanta, GA. The Atlanta metro area shows a 2011 price index decline of -10.5%. The city with the second highest price decline was Phoenix, AZ with a 2011 decline of -5.2% or about half of the drop experienced (here) in Atlanta.

If you want property tax relief in the coming year and you would like the help of real estate professionals that are saving property owners 21% on average in 2011 contact Fair Assessments, LLC. We are your Atlanta based property tax consulting firm. Our 20+ years experience in real estate appraisal, property tax assessment, and property tax reduction is unequaled. For help with your property tax appeal contact us.

The negative news and forecasts for the residential real estate market just keep on coming. Recently Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) predicted that housing values could decline another 6-8% before hitting a bottom. They blame it on tightened lending standards that are shutting many Americans out of the housing market.

Lender Processing Services (LPS), the company that recently reported that 6.4 million mortgages are delinquent, also announced that their home price index has declined 3.8% year over year as of August. In the month of August they show housing values fell 0.9%. Their home price index shows that nationally, home prices have fallen 28.3% on average from the peak in mid 2006.

If you would like to save money in 2012 consider appealing your real estate property tax assessment. If you live in the Atlanta metropolitan area and would like professional assistance with your property tax appeal contact Fairassessments.com

Realty Trac, Inc. reported that default notices increased 10% in October as compared to September and rose to an 11 month high in states where foreclosures must be processed through the court system. Nationally, auction notices increased 8% and home seizures jumped 4%. Nationally foreclosure filings increased 7% to a seven-month high in October after a year-long slowdown due to the robo-signing scandal.

Over a quarter of one million properties received default notices, auction, or repossession notices in October. The number of notices was actually down 31% from a year ago as one year ago was when the complaints started being raised about the foreclosure process and faulty/forged documentation. Realty Trac also estimated that the nation's housing market may need as long as 40 months to clear all of the distressed sales.

If you need help with your property tax appeal please visit www.fairassessments.com and contact us for your Fair Assessment.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently reported that their data shows a national, median home price decline of 4.37%. This was the decline in the third quarter of 2011 and values declined in 111 out of 150 metropolitan areas tracked. The number of metro areas showing a decline in housing values was little changed from the number showing declines in the second quarter.

Separately Integrated Asset Services (IAS), owner of the IAS360 House Price Index, reported that home prices ROSE 4% during the third quarter. How could this be? You would think that the NAR would have a database of property transactions that is wide and deep. Although the information in the various MLS around the country is often less than accurate, where could IAS get better information, public records? The public records are at least as suspect as the MLS in most jurisdictions.

I'm not saying that the NAR or IAS are wrong. The problem with statistics is that if the data used is skewed, the result is skewed. If the sample from the population of transactions used is skewed to the upside or downside your results are not indicative of the true state of affairs. After all of the recent news bites that have been released about the continuing decline in housing values it seems very odd that IAS would release a report about housing values climbing. To their credit, they said that this is the calm before the storm, and indicated that the shadow inventory of foreclosures have yet to fully impact house values.

Perceptions about housing values are becoming a reality as potential home purchasers continue to put off their home purchase decisions. Although 27% of Americans indicate that they will be buying a home at some point in the future only 2% say that they plan to buy within the next 12 months. The people that don't plan to buy within the next 12 months are concerned about the real estate market and declining values, the economy and jobs. Many also say that they won't be buying any time soon because of the lack of available financing.

Although there are about 6.4 million delinquent mortgage loans right now Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are only holding about 180,000 homes. Fannie Mae said that the houses it has been selling have been selling for 56% of the unpaid mortgage balance. That's quite a haircut especially if there was any equity put into the deal at the beginning. Both Fannie and Freddie cannot sell houses faster than the foreclosures are coming in. At their current rate of sale it will take Fannie Mae four years to sell their inventory and Freddie Mac will take 15 years to clear its inventory.

The negative data keeps piling onto the residential real estate market. It seems like every day someone else comes out with a home price index that showing that the market is still falling. Recently, Fiserv reported that home prices fell 5.9% on an annual basis during the second quarter of this year. They said that this continues the double dip in home values that started last year. Fiserv predicts that houses will continue to fall, dropping another 3.6% by June of 2012. Although existing housing has become much less expensive than it was just a few years ago, increased lending standards brought the volume of house sales back to the 1998 level.

At fair assessments LLC. We concentrate on commercial property value reductions. However we do residential property tax appeals for homeowners in the Atlanta Metro area that live in Fulton County to County and Gwinnett County. If you would like assistance with your property tax appeal in 2012, please contact us at www.fair assessments.com and we will do our best with your property tax appeal.

There is increasing concern that the lack of available financing will be a major problem in 2012 for commercial properties whose loans are maturing. The problem appears to be especially acute for hotels as they have about $21.7 billion of mortgage-backed securities on 232 hotels that will need to be refinanced over the next year. Some knowledgeable people in the hotel industry believe that maybe as few as one third of the loans that need to be rolled over will find financing.

There is little money available to finance the construction of new hotels right now. Lenders don't want to get into this space when everyone is anticipating a large number of hotel properties to be foreclosed. Although capitalization rates on hotels as well as other commercial property types have fallen recently, it will take some time to see if we actually get a double top in Rates. Limited service hotels in marginal locations have been hit the hardest in the hotel motel space.

I have worked property tax appeals on hotels for many years. There is room for negotiation on the assessor's values even if capitalization rates are down this year compared to last. County appraisers are often undereducated on allocating a portion of the income stream to personal property as well as deducting for personal property replacement. Business startup costs are another expense item that can be used to account for the specialized personnel that work in a hotel and the technology and training that is needed. If you need professional assistance with your hotel property tax appeal, please contact us.

Zillow, the much less than accurate, automated valuation model that everyone loves to play with reported that the number of US homeowners that owe more than their properties are worth climbed in the third quarter. The share of borrowers that are underwater rose to 28.6% or more than one out of every four mortgaged houses in the United States. Zillow said that the number increased because fewer properties are being foreclosed on by the banks. So there's our long-term solution! Just speed up the foreclosure process. Once the bank takes the house back it ain't underwater anymore!

CoreLogic a real estate research firm recently reported that the Atlanta metropolitan area showed a year-over-year decline in single-family home values of -7.8%. Of the 10 largest metropolitan areas only Chicago and Phoenix had higher year over year single-family home value declines. The Washington DC and New York City metropolitan areas are the only two of the top 10 metropolitan areas that showed a year-over-year increase in value.

If you are a homeowner in the Atlanta, Georgia Metro area and you don't think that your county tax assessor has been realistic about values in your neighborhood, then it's time to be proactive. The property tax appeal process isn't like fighting City Hall. The tax assessor's office expects property owners to appeal their real estate assessments. If you would like help from someone with experience both inside the assessor's office and outside of the assessor's office appealing tax assessments, please contact us for help with your property tax appeal.

Fitch Ratings service recently indicated that increasing numbers of foreclosures will add to the distressed housing inventory and will put further pressure on housing prices over the near-term. Of the huge number of delinquent home loans out there approximately 10% are moving into foreclosure now every month. Fitch went on to predict that housing prices will decline another 10% before they stabilize.

At the same time CoreLogic released data that showed that the year-over-year decline in residential real estate values in September was 4.1%. Of course, that number includes a lot of distressed sales but when you take out the distressed sales there was still a year over year decline in value of 1.1%. Due to the large number of delinquent residential mortgages that have not been processed because of the robo-signing scandal, the number of foreclosure properties coming to market will continue to stay high for months to come.

Separately, Clear Capital, which has their own housing price index reported that their year-over-year October reading was a -2.8% and they indicated that all data indicates a further negative path in home prices through this winter. If your County assessor is sitting on his or her hands and not doing anything with the values in your neighborhood, you should seriously consider a property tax appeal. If you need assistance with a property tax appeal or additional information please contact us.