Market Trends and Condition

Auction April 5th at noon. See these two links!

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2012/03/12/news/01top_03-12-12.txt

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/13/buford-wyoming-don-sammons_n_1342544.html?1331675496&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl9|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D143344

An article at MSNBC.com talks about investor buyers in different areas around the country who are buying multiple foreclosure properties in packages at some amazingly low prices. One investor in Columbus, OH bid on almost 50 properties in various stages of decomposition. Even though many were in really poor shape, she managed to purchase a number of properties at an average of $3000 each.

It’s a lot like stock market arbitrage, in that investors can take advantage of an extremely low cost of capital and fire sale prices to buy multiple properties, make repairs and then bank great cash flows from a growing pool of renters. With rental demand up, these investors are quickly filling these properties and banking cash from the first month they’re ready for a tenant.

Every week there are a few important but shorter stories that are of interest to real estate investors, and these are those stories for this week:

New Home Sales Dip, but Supply Very Low
Sales of new homes dipped in January. The government had made an upward revision to the December data which contributed to this dip however. The Commerce Department said that sales slipped by 0.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted 321,000 unit annual rate.
At the same time, the supply of new homes in the market fell to 5.6 months, the lowest since January 2006. That compared to 5.7 months in December. A 6 month supply is generally considered ideal, with higher readings indicating steep price declines.

Home Prices Lowest Since 2002

RealtyTrac.com reports that in the fourth quarter of 2011, foreclosures represented one-fourth of all home sales. This was up from 20% in the third quarter, and down only slightly from a year earlier when foreclosures accounted for 26% of sales.

In total, 204,080 distressed properties were sold in the fourth quarter, down 2% from the same quarter a year ago. For all of 2011, foreclosure sales were down year over year by 2% to 907,138, accounting for 23% of home sales. Though foreclosures were beginning to ramp up, they were still being slowed in the fourth quarter by questions surrounding paperwork errors and abuses related to the robo-signing scandal.

Fannie Mae will be offering up nearly 2500 distressed properties in eight locations to investors who are willing to buy them in bulk as rental units. Fannie Mae didn't specify how many years, but there will be a requirement that they be rented out for a set number of years.

The properties are located in Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles/Riverside, and three Florida regions. They include all types of housing from single family homes to co-op apartment buildings.

There will be strict guidelines for who will qualify as a buyer, and these properties represent only a tiny portion of the more than 180,000 properties held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Many of the properties are already occupied by tenants, and buyers will be required to honor their leases.

Here's the story:

http://247wallst.com/2012/02/29/states-with-the-most-miserable-housing-m...

Sure glad I don't live out West!!

Each week there are some interesting news releases that may not justify a complete article, so we bring them to you as a composite here.

Home Prices at Lowest Point in 10 Years

The National Association of Realtors reports that January home prices fell to a decade low, with the median home sale prices at $154,700. This is down from $219,000 in 2007, considered near the peak of the market.

With foreclosures picking up again after court cases and settlements with lenders over the robo-signing scandals, it is expected that distressed sales will continue to keep prices down or falling for at least the first half of 2012.

The rise in the number of existing home sales in January is in response to these record low home prices and the corresponding record low mortgage rates.

The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) reports that previously owned home sales surged in January to the highest level since May of 2010. Home sales have been in their longest dip since the Great Depression, and these new sales numbers are making some analysts hopeful that improvement may have begun for the housing sector.

NAR reported this week that existing home sales, the majority share of the overall housing market, rose 4.3 percent in January. This equals a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million homes. However, this is still far below the 6 million pace that economists say is necessary for a healthy housing market.

From an article today at msnbc.com:

"In terms of prices, the housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Standard and Poor's index committee. "While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended."

Here are the cities where prices have fallen the farthest over the past year, based on the index:
•Atlanta, -12.8%
•Las Vegas, -8.8%
•Chicago, -6.5%
•Seattle, -5.6%
•San Francisco, -5.4%
•San Diego, -5.4%

the last quarter of 2011. Overall, the nation’s median home prices fell by a modest 0.1 percent. Nine Census Divisions are tracked, and here are those numbers:

Division Ranking 1-Yr. Qtr. 5-Yr. Since 1991Q1

USA -2.43 -0.10 -19.16 80.27
West South Central 1 1.24 1.07 1.84 94.52
East South Central 2 -0.76 0.33 -7.62 79.35
West North Central 3 -1.33 -0.21 -9.40 92.29
New England 4 -2.06 -0.60 -12.67 96.67
South Atlantic 5 -2.78 0.03 -26.07 76.39
East North Central 6 -2.88 -0.72 -17.05 59.08
Middle Atlantic 7 -3.43 -1.16 -9.99 97.19
Mountain 8 -3.59 0.62 -31.15 100.34
Pacific 9 -4.78 -0.11 -38.24 68.71

Ranking is based on one-year appreciation.