St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 22nd, 2008

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 22nd, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County and Bi-weekly St. Charles County Market and Jefferson County Market Watch Report to review and plug into your home buying or selling scenario. Your questions and comments are welcome!

 The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week continues to slow a bit, as Thanksgiving and the other Holidays are approaching.  Homes that are accepting contracts (pendings) have remained fairly steady from last week, which signals steady buyer activity.  Again we are seeing less active listings coming onto the market.  These two situations have caused our pending ratio to increase slightly to 10.44 percent. 

 It is noteworthy that the buyer activity in the price ranges from $100,000 up to $300,000 is still beating the averages.  Pending ratios in these price ranges are still well above 10 percent.  We expect to see this activity continue, as this is the range that the FHA financing guidelines operate in.  With those guidelines changing a bit after the first of the year,  homebuyers in these price ranges should buy now before the end of the year.

It’s not cast in stone yet, but anticipated that FHA will be increasing the minimum downpayment requirement of 3 percent to 3.5 percent after the first of the year.  Also, the Mortgage Insurance Premium is anticipated to increase slightly also.  If these changes do take place after the first of the year, it will mean that home-buyers in these price ranges will have to bring more money to the closing table, thus giving them less purchasing power. Also anticipated is a decrease in the maximum loan amount of $281,000 to $271,000.

On a positive note, the Bush Administration this week announced changes to their “Hope for Homeowners” program to help more distressed homeowners refinance their mortgages to help them stay in their homes.  Read the article posted on RisMedia.com HERE.

 

HAPPY THANSGIVING TO ALL OUR READERS!!

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm and is filed under St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.