Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Las Vegas real estate prices considered stable by price-rent ratio
Price-rent ratio is one good way to gauge whether a particular housing market's values are stable or not. The popular ratio is figured by dividing a city's median home price by its median annual rent. A pretty basic calculation that will actually say a lot. The national historical average has been 15, according to Marcus & Millichap, a California commercial real estate brokerage. That's where it again stood at the end of the third quarter of 2009, having retreated there from almost 21 where it had soared to during the housing bubble's climax in 2005.
By many real estate yardsticks, a price-rent ratio under 15 translates into a market where home values are considered quite stable. On the other hand, anything over it, and especially higher than 18, signals that prices remain soft and are likely to erode further. Unless a large down payment is used, going underwater - mortgage balance is higher than property value - in the coming months becomes a real danger.
Please click on the above link to read the entire blog.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Las Vegas upside down homeowners to recover by 2020? It's plausible
Many Southern Nevada - including Mountains Edge, Summerlin, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Canyon Gate and Spanish Trail - mortgage borrowers are still dealing with the effects of the great real estate meltdown. Short sale has recently become a more acceptable avenue for home loan banks to address the lingering issue of delinquency, giving people a somewhat more palatable way out of a tight spot. Despite that, high mortgage foreclosure filings continue clouding the sandy landscape of Las Vegas valley. The once in a lifetime housing upheaval is by no means over and done with yet.
Sin City's homeowners have watched in horror as property values have taken a perilous plunge over the cliff, slamming them so low that scores are now in negative equity. An altogether regrettable situation. They are now spending quality time wondering about the future of housing here. More specifically, when the underwater label would be ceremoniously blacked out from the local real estate vocabulary.
First American CoreLogic, a real estate research boutique, has taken the brave step of trying to answer that tricky question. It took a close look at ten markets, one of which was Las Vegas, in order to arrive at a time frame when the average mortgage recipient would break surface and again breathe fresh air. It used unpaid principal balances, short-term housing forecasts, a standard measure of long-term value trends, amortization and predictably some other exotic proprietary data to make it happen.
To read the entire blog please click on the above link.
Mortgage fraud on decline thanks to tougher underwriting criteria
When the notorious housing bubble was forming some years ago a lot of factors were aiding and abetting its run to those dizzying, unsustainable heights. One of them was mortgage fraud. Banks were so busy crafting new and glitzy home loan products and making money hand over fist with them that often they overlooked questionable mortgage loan applications. When opportunity knocks, it has to be taken full advantage of, seems to have been the going motto then.
But things have changed drastically in the mortgage world since the air rapidly hissed out of the bubble. Investors, who bought mortgage-backed securities, or MBS, have increasingly requested lenders take back fraudulent loans. That has prompted them to tighten their mortgage guidelines, as it really hurts their bottom line to buy back all sorts of wayward paper. Besides tougher guidelines, application information is also more carefully verified for a change.
Please click on the link to read the entire blog.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
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