It’s hard to turn on a newscast these days without hearing about the Cash for Clunkers program and what it has done for the auto industry. It’s also hard to resist the urge to make comparisons between Washington’s two great fixes to stimulate the economy: C4C and the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit. If you’re thinking that the real estate industry needs a Cash for Clunkers program, you might match up of the two fixes to see if it makes sense. New Housing Forecasts available now at: https://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/category/housing-forecasts/forecasts/ Read More »

Like black markets that spring up in ravaged cities during wartime, there’s something inherently unhealthy about the existence of a two-tiered housing market, one for “normal” sales and one for “distressed” sales. Read More »

Perhaps you’ve heard of the pending demand for real estate-prospective buyers who have postponed taking action until they perceive conditions have optimized. There’s also a pending supply of real estate and it’s large enough to have a serious impact on the housing markets if a recent study is correct. Read More »

Just what is the world coming to?

A new national survey by Move, Inc, operator of Realtor.com, sheds some light on the two most powerful factors motivating buyers in this complicated market. Those would be fear and opportunity. Read More »

A recent study conducted by researchers from the graduate schools of business at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University found that one out of four homeowners who default on their mortgages make a strategic decision to clear out their belongings and walk away from their homes-even if they can afford to pay their mortgages. Read More »

There’s an old construction industry adage that goes something like this: when home builders prosper, remodelers have hard times and when remodelers are doing well, it’s a bad market for builders. Read More »

For the first time during the current real estate recession, most homeowners have come to grips with the fact that their homes have lost value during the past year. Read More »

National surveys over the past month are detecting a change in public attitudes towards real estate for both homeowners and investors. Read More »

Two new public opinion surveys taken last week found encouraging stirrings of consumer confidence and pent- up demand for homeownership. A new national survey conducted last weekend and commissioned by Move, Inc. found that 23 percent of adults plan to purchase a home in the next five years, and more than half of them are first-time homebuyers, even though half of all Ameri­cans are concerned they or someone they know will face foreclosure in the next six to 12 months. The Move survey also found nearly one out of five home owners plan to take advantage of the Administration’s new program to help prevent fore­closures. While searching for answers in the past 12 months, 21 percent of all homeown­ers with a mortgage contacted a lender to restructure their loan. Half of those homeown­ers who contacted their lender experienced success while six percent still await an answer. Despite today’s challenging market conditions, 18.1 percent of adults plan to buy a home this year in or­der to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit recently passed by Congress in the Administration’s economic stimulus package. Read More »