Existing Home Sales Up in June
Posted on July 27th, 2009
Sale of existing homes rose 3.6% from May to June. This marks the third consecutive monthly gain and is an indication that a housing recovery may have begun across much of the country. “The housing market appears to be healing,” said Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtor (NAR).
The NAR said that existing home sales rose to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 4.89 million homes in June, up from 4.27 million homes in May. Inventories of homes fell to 9.4 month from 9.8 months. According to Yun, inventories must be at or below 7 months to achieve price stability.
This is the highest level of sales since October 2008 and beat economist expectations. According to Thomson Reuters, sales were expected to only rise to 4.84 million homes.
Median home sale price also rose in June. Median prices were $181,800 compared to $174,700 in May. However, home prices were still down significantly from the same period last year – losing 15.4%.
These are very positive signs for the housing market and overall economy!
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Reduce Your Mortgage Payments (Part 1)
Posted on July 25th, 2009
This is the 1st of a series of three blog posts on how homeowners can take advantage of new Federal Government programs to significantly lower your mortgage payments.
The Obama Housing Programs
President Obama signed three new housing programs into law earlier this year. The programs are intended to make mortgage payments more affordable. They apply especially to homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure and those whose home values may be less than the amounts owed on their mortgages. The programs are also intended to stabilize the housing markets across the nation. The programs are funded at $75B, with most of the funds coming from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
President Obama also signed into law the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act. The act makes some improvements to the HOPE for Homeowners Program established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The goal is to help additional homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Home Affordable Refinance Program
The Home Affordable Refinance program enables homeowners to refinance their mortages with today’s lower interest rates. The lower rates could help howners to significantly reduce their monthly payments. This program is especially useful to homeowners who may not be able to take advantage of today’s lower interest rates, because their home values may be less than the mortgage balance. The Federal government expects that this program could reach between 4 and 5 million homeowners.
The 2nd post in this series will provide more details on the refinance program.
Home Affordable Modification Program
The Home Affordable Modification program also helps homeowners reduce their monthly mortgage payments. But it is intended for those homeowners who have defaulted on their payments and who may be in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. The Federal government expects that this program could reach between 3 and 4 million homeowners.
The 3rd post in this series will provide more details on the modification program.
More Information
The government has setup a web site, www.makinghomeaffordable.gov, to provide additional details on the Home Affordable programs. The site includes assessment tools, calculators and document checklists. It also includes community events, links to free counseling resources, and FAQs. Information on the HOPE for Homeowners program is covered at www.hud.gov/hopeforhomeowners/index.cfm.
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