Real Estate News
Updates about the real estate industry or national real estate news
This category currently has 8 blog entries.
Mon, Sep 29, 2008
Below is a press release from the Sarasota Association of Realtors about the Sarasota real estate market for the month of August 2008.
Despite a late summer and early fall dominated by depressing economic news across the nation, property sales in the Sarasota MLS did not see a dramatic change from the previous month, continuing a traditional slower summer sales season.
Overall sales stood at 440 in August, only slightly lower than the 454 in July. In fact, sales in August 2008 were actually higher than in August 2007, when only 430 overall single family homes and condos were sold.
The biggest decrease from last year was in condominium sales, which fell to 84 this year compared to 122 last year. The August 2008 report continued...
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Fri, May 09, 2008
Noted real estate expert, Professor Karl E. Case, created the chart above showing the housing starts and recessions since 1972. Notice how every time the housing starts dip below the 1 million mark the real estate market turns around and the recession end. In March of 2008 housing starts dropped below 1 million.
Case believes the market is near or at the bottom. "It's bottom-fishing time, I think," says Mr. Case. "There's got to be bargains in Florida, Arizona and Nevada."
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Wed, May 07, 2008
Below is an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal yesterday about the housing crisis. You can read it here. Read it and let me know what you think. He makes some very valid points. I would not say the mess is completely over but I don't see it getting much worse.
By CYRIL MOULLE-BERTEAUX
May 6, 2008; Page A23
The dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.
How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won't happen for another 15...
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Tue, Apr 22, 2008
The Sarasota Board of Realtors released some news this morning about the Sarasota real estate market. Overall property sales in the local market for March 2008 topped 500 for the fierst time in 8 month according to the Sarasota MLS. There were 514 property sales reported which topped the February 20078 sales of 423.
There were 344 homes sold in March 2008 along with 170 condominiums. This compares to 294 homes and 129 condominiums in February 2008. March saw an overall increase of almost 22 percent over February.
An interesting fact about the Sarasota-Manatee markets - this area sold more overall properties than the Miami market. There were 1,022 overall sales where Miami only had 609. That obviously is a much larger market....
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Sat, Sep 01, 2007
SKY Sotheby's International Realty will be hosting another portfolio property auction November 16, 2007. The event will be held at The Longboat Key Club. If you have been looking to buy this may be the perfect opportunity to find a luxury home or condo in the Sarasota area. This also is a tremendous opportunity for sellers who would like to display their luxury property for sale to a large group of qualified buyers.
Why Buyers Should Attend:
There will be a large assemblage of luxury properties for sale. The auction is limited to 50 quality properties.
No long drawn out negotiations
Properties will sell for market value
Seller Advantages:
Sellers are in more control of when the property will sell
No...
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Wed, Aug 15, 2007
It is rare to turn on CNBC or watch the nightly news and not hear something about the subprime mortgage meltdown. Is this for real or has it been overhyped? This would not be the first time the media sensationalizes something to generate more ad revenue. The constant chatter sells more papers and makes more people tune in to the nightly news.
According an article from Fox News there are 44 million mortgages in the United States. Less than 14% of those mortgage are subprime. Only 13% of the subprime mortgages are late on the payments, with the majority of late payers working through their problems with the banks.
If you work through all of the knitty gritty details only about 0.6% of U.S. mortgages are in foreclosures. That’s up...
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Tue, Aug 07, 2007
American Home Mortgage recently filed for bankruptcy protection and became became the latest casualty of the ongoing credit crisis. This company closed over $58 billion in home loans in 2006. Their closing left nearly $800,000,000 in loans that are unable to close. Thousands of borrowers have now been left without financing as a result of mortgage companies closing their doors.
So how does this affect the real estate market?
Sellers with unrealistic asking prices need to lower their price if they want to sell. Tighter lending guidelines will continue to reduce the number buyers. Fewer buyers (demand) with a large number of inventory (supply) leads to lower prices.
Sellers should work diligently when receiving realistic...
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Mon, Jul 30, 2007
The associated press reported an interesting article about how newspapers earnings across the country are down. Much of that is due in part to Realtors shifting their advertising expenditures from the newspaper to the internet. The downturn in the real estate market is partly to blame for the decrease in newspaper earnings.
Several real estate executives say they are making a conscious decision to spend less with newspapers and more on the internet and the web grows in importance as a tool for home searching.
Newspapers are worried that real estate advertising will never come back and that it will become the next category of classified advertising to make a permanent shift to the internet. Craigs list is a good example of how the...
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