California Mortgage News: March 2006

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Second Home Sales Increase Their Share Of Real Estate Market

The National Association of Realtors recently released an interesting report about the sale of second homes in the United States. While the survey is a little outdated, the data covers sales over five years to the end of 2004, it still provides a perspective as to who, where, and how non-primary residences are being purchased.

For example, during the years from 2001 to 2004, second home sales (which include both recreational/vacation property and investment property) more than doubled

This really isn't surprising, many home owners in the markets experiencing the most growth were taking equity from their rapidly appreciating California home and where investing it other markets. As these other markets cooled, the second home buyers were the first to leave.
Read More Now

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Monday, March 27, 2006

Housing Bubble Conflicting Data Released

The housing market threw the world another curve on Thursday. After five straight months of declining sales of existing homes, a sixth dreary month was pretty generally expected. Instead the National Association of Realtors announced that February sales of previously-owned homes had jumped 5.2 percent from similar sales in January. This was the largest monthly increase in two years.

NAR itself said that the encouraging report was a sign that the market was "stabilizing" and should "level out" in the months ahead.

While that's NAR's position as head cheerleader, it's apparent the the 5 months of declining prices and lower interest rates had an impact on declining sales and finally some people bought.

Read the Report at Mortgage News Daily

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Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Fannie Mae Saga Continues As Rudman Report Is

Fannie Mae Saga Continues As Rudman Report Is Issued
The long awaited independent accounting report on Fannie Mae was released late last month, and while it sort of absolves Franklin Raines, former Chairman and CEO of the mega-mortgage company who, along with Timothy Howard the CFO lost his job at the height of the scandal, it comes down pretty hard on Howard. Interestingly, we did not find one mention of the accounting firm of KPMG which was also fired from its position of independent auditor, in the report's Executive Summary.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Mortgage Rates Hit Three Year Highs After months

Mortgage Rates Hit Three Year Highs
After months of apparent indecisiveness, mortgages rates seem to have decided on a direction and are heading toward it. Unfortunately that direction is up! Both of the mortgage market surveys we track reported rates at their highest levels since mid-2002 and in one case since 2001.

Rate increases seem natural given the market and where it's headed.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Zillow May Not Be Ready For Prime Time

Zillow May Not Be Ready For Prime Time
We have had a lot of feedback from readers about our first article about the Zillow.com website which was published here during the week of February 12. Nearly all of the writers were extremely negative about Zillow. For example: "This website is highly inaccurate. The values of the homes are not even close. A house valued at 380K will come back on Zillow as 212K. They have a serious database problem." "It's a very BASIC GUESS. It cannot 'see' the house (if the house is) damaged by a storm or fire or anything else. It cannot 'see' (if) the property is waterfront or has a spectacular view - or not - and compares (it) to only what's close in proximity - or the property that is gutted on the inside. Hey, it is free so everyone can use it at their own risk. VERY misleading in many areas and only decent for 'cookie cutter' neighborhoods in disclosure states. You can trust it about as much as a pie in the sky."

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Environmental And Asthetical Alternatives Exist To Minimize Hardscape

Environmental And Asthetical Alternatives Exist To Minimize Hardscape
Reducing the impervious materials used to accommodate vehicles and recycling the water that washes off of our roofs can pay big dividends to the environment and maybe even the household budget.

Additionally these systems can be used without running up your water bill to water your outside plants.