Property Tax Appeal Blog (82)

US foreclosures hit record 2.9 mn in 2010: analyst

- Thu Jan 13, 2:16 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Banks moved to repossess a record 2.87 million US homes in 2010 as the two-year-old mortgage crisis continued to weigh heavily on the economy, foreclosure specialist RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosures hit 2.23 percent of all housing units in the country, or one out of 45, an increase from 2.21 percent in 2009, RealtyTrac said in its 2010 report.

But the pace of foreclosures eased up in the fourth quarter, as banks ran into increasing legal challenges from owners angry that banks had repossessed their homes under a slipshod process...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110113/ts_alt_afp/ushousingbanking

CoreLogic Home Price Index Shows Decline for Fourth Straight Month

RISMEDIA, January 12, 2011 - CoreLogic, a leading provider of information, analytics and business services released its November 2010 Home Price Index (HPI) which shows that home prices in the U.S. declined for the fourth month in a row. According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices - including distressed sales - declined by 5.07% in November 2010 compared to November 2009 and declined by 3.35% in October 2010 compared to October 2009. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 2.21% in November 2010 compared to November 2009 and declined by 2.24% in October 2010 compared to October 2009. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
http://rismedia.com/2011-01-11/corelogic-home-price-index-shows-decline-for-fourth-straight-month/

U.S. Apartment Vacancies Fall to 2-Year Low, Extending Recovery

By Hui-yong Yu - Jan 6, 2011

U.S. apartment vacancies fell to a two-year low in the fourth quarter and rents rose, extending a market recovery that began in early 2010, property research firm Reis Inc. said.

The national apartment vacancy rate dropped to 6.6 percent from 8 percent a year earlier and from 7.1 percent in the third quarter, the New York-based company said in a report today. It was the lowest since 2008's third quarter, when the rate was 6.2 percent, according to Reis.

Apartment occupancies have risen as a surge in home foreclosures forced many people to lease apartments. While the 951,000 jobs added to U.S. payrolls from January to November is a fraction of the 8.4 million lost during the recession, "it is far better than the situation in early to mid-2009, when the nation was terminating hundreds of thousands of jobs per month," Reis said.

Effective rents, or what tenants actually pay, rose to an average $986 a month from $964 a year earlier and $981 in the prior quarter, Reis said. Landlords' asking rents also climbed, to $1,042 from $1,026 a year earlier and $1,037 in the third quarter, according to the report...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-06/u-s-apartment-vacancies-fall-to-2-year-low-extending-recovery.html

Metro Atlanta Georgia Property Tax Appeal Help

If you want the best results when appealing your property taxes, you have come to the right place. I have been successfully appealing real property values for seven years. Prior to this I was manager for the Fulton County Tax Assessors, as well as the Prince William County Assessor, Prince William, VA, in metro D.C. I am also a designated member of the International Association of Assessing Officers.

By Kris Hudson

...Shopping-center vacancy held steady at 10.9% in the fourth quarter, unchanged for the third consecutive quarter, Reis said. That vacancy rate remains at the highest that Reis has tracked since 1991. What is more, net absorption for U.S. shopping centers in the quarter-the net amount of new space leased-amounted to just 92,000 square feet after a gain in the previous quarter of 474,000 square feet.

More of the Same for 2011

Foreclosures Reach Record Highs in 2010

Daily Real Estate News | January 5, 2011

Foreclosures Reach Record Highs in 2010
Foreclosures were big in 2010 and buyers eager to own them came out in record numbers, Foreclosure Deals, a news source, reports.

Experts are expecting foreclosures to climb even higher in 2011.

"We saw a lot more repossessions, but we also saw record numbers of home buyers at foreclosure sales," said James Foxx, business analyst for Foreclosure Deals. "Foreclosures are selling at rock-bottom prices, and they remain the best way for first-time home buyers or investors to find the best deals. I think it's clear that statistics for foreclosures in 2011 are going to look very similar to those for foreclosure filings 2010..."

http://www.realtor.org/rmodaily.nsf/pages/News2011010502

Why commercial real estate is still a gamble

The forecasts are rosy for the CRE market, but systemic headwinds still exist, making this a tough sector to bank on profits.

By Kit R. Roane, contributor

Until recently, the smart money saw commercial real estate as the next asset class to do a number on the economy. Now some believe it is turning into a feather in the recovery's cap. But every bet has its risks -- and in this case, better days may be farther into the future than many investors would like.

The bullish case for the commercial real estate market is that the bad news is baked in, and what's left will likely dissipate as the economy gains steam. Wells Fargo (WFC) sees commercial real estate actually contributing to growth by the second half of this year, driven by more interest in leasing, steadying rents and increasing sales...

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/03/why-commercial-real-estate-is-still-a-gamble/

Fresh Signs of Life in Office Market

By ANTON TROIANOVSKI

The amount of occupied U.S. office space increased for the first time in nearly three years during the fourth quarter of 2010 as more companies that had been postponing real-estate decisions got back into the leasing market.

Average office rents also rose by 0.2%, to $22.09 per square foot, registering their first uptick since the second quarter of 2008, according to property-research firm Reis Inc. While the 79 metropolitan areas tracked by Reis vary greatly, the national trend means that in many regions the balance of power is shifting to landlords from tenants.

The office market has been hard hit by job losses. From January 2008 to September 2010, businesses vacated 137.8 million square feet of office space-more than the inventory in Chicago's central business district. In the final three months of 2010, however, occupied office space in the U.S. grew by 2.5 million square feet.

On the whole, the office-market recovery remains weak...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704835504576060053365059760.html?mod=WSJ_RealEstate_MIDDLETopNews

NAR's Many "IFs" (LOL)

NAR Sees Gradual Housing Recovery Based on Several Assumptions
by Adam Quinones

(My insert: This is from the end of Adam's article that you can access at the link below - Dan)

Plain and Simple: Correct me if I am putting words in Lawrence Yun's mouth here but it sounds like he is saying...IF WE CREATE 2 MILLION JOBS...IF MORTGAGE RATES ONLY RISE MODERATELY...IF LENDERS RETURN TO MORE NORMAL (SAFE) UNDERWRITING GUIDELINES...IF HOME PRICES DON'T DOUBLE-DIP...IF IF IF.....housing will only GRADUALLY RECOVER.

Sounds like a lot of IF's need to play out just to see a GRADUAL housing recovery. Oh well. We gotta start somewhere.

Call me when GSE reform is done. Call me when we figure out how in the hell we're gonna deal with excessive excess inventory. Call me when common sense makes it way back into underwriting guidelines and lenders stop overlaying already overdone overlays. Call me when the CFPB is finally set up or when the GFE and TIL are successfully combined.

Ugh. Call me when regulators question how REALTORS GET PAID.

SORRY SORRY...

I am not attempting to start any poo flinging fests. We all need to come together as housing professionals here. My simple point is...there is a ton of uncertainty out there: Rationalizing the Spike in Mortgage Rates with No Rationality At All

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/12302010_pending_home_sales.asp

House Values Still Above Long-Term Trend

Home Prices Are Still Too High

They would have to decline another 20% just to get back to the historical trend line.

By PETER D. SCHIFF

Most economists concede that a lasting general recovery is unlikely without a recovery in the housing market. A marked increase in defaults and foreclosures from today's already elevated levels could produce losses that overwhelm banks and trigger another, deeper financial crisis. Study after study has shown that defaults go up when falling prices put mortgage holders "underwater." As a result, the trajectory of home prices has tremendous economic significance.

By Kris Hudson

They would have to decline another 20% just to get back to the historical trend line.

By PETER D. SCHIFF

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