The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County and Monthly  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 continues to show good signs of activity, both on the buying side as well as the selling side.  We see increases in active listings, homes accepting contracts and pending ratios in almost all price ranges.  Our average pending ratio has increased by over 1%  from last week.

Tax credits are certainly fueling buyers and sellers in the market right now.  Another reason for this activity should be the pending FHA changes coming as we get closer to spring.  Buyers should definitely try to get in front of those changes, as they will cost you more money, either up-front or monthly, depending on how the changes are structured. 

At this point, we still have no concrete date as to when these changes will take place.   As a refresher, these changes will probably involve Mortgage Insurance Premium increases,  FICO credit score increases for qualifying for an FHA loan, and a decrease in allowable seller concessions to the buyer.  We’ll try to keep you in the loop as to when these will be occurring.

 WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

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 show good signs of positive movement.  Active listings are moving upward, along with the number of homes accepting contracts in the last 30 days (pending) .  This activity has helped the pending ratio move up to 11.49% from 11.34% two weeks ago. 

For the month of January 2010 compared to January 2009, we are about even as far as active listings and our pending ratios.  However,  at the end of January, we are showing almost 500 more homes sold from August 1st 2009 through January 30, 2010 opposed to the same six month time frame one year ago. 

Obviously, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credits and Move-Up Buyer Tax Credits have played a part in this activity.    Other contributing factors are also the low interest rates,  affordability of homes in our market and of course, for those willing and able to fix up a house or a complete re-hab, there are awesome deals on distressed properties in our market. 

 Also worth noting  is that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD has recently announced changes to the FHA guidelines which will affect most anyone in the real estate market planning to finance their purchase through FHA.

There are three major changes coming in the near future:

1.  Mortgage Insurance Premium-MIP- will increase, from 1.75% to 2.25%. This is the part of the mortgage insurance premium that an FHA borrower is required to pay up front at the beginning of the loan. Now, this amount can be “rolled ” into the loan amount, but it has been talked about and proposed that this be dis-allowed at some point in the future.   There is also talk about shifting some of the up-front MIP costs over to the monthly MIP premium payments, thus having a bit less of an impact on the borrower at loan inception, but adding more dollars to the monthly payment. 

2.  Changes in minimum FICO credit scores.  Borrowers with less than a 580 credit score would be required to have a 10% down payment.  Most lenders these days are requring a credit score of at least 620 to qualify for an FHA loan at 3.5% down payment.  

3.  Reduction in amount of allowable seller concessions.  This probably affects us in St. Louis the least, but FHA is proposing to lower the maximum seller concessions from 6% to 3%.  In our market, it is very rare that you see a seller giving a buyer 6% of the purchase price of the home as concessions towards their closing cost, prepaid expenses or loan points.  Our usual in this market has been 3% for some time.   I’m sure you can find exceptions to this here in St. Louis, but this should affect more of the higher priced areas of the country, with higher FHA loan limits. 

All of these changes, and possibly more are likely to occur sometime early this spring.   That April 30th deadline for First Time Home Buyers and Move Up Home Buyers may be much more important now than ever.  And…who knows what the government means by “early spring”.

We’ll keep you up to date as we hear more about the FHA changes and when they will go into effect.   

 WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

Use this report  to compare your homes current value to an annual 4% growth.

Do you want more specific detail about your home, make an appointment right now with Doug Aegerter 314-640-1778 or Art Wagner 314-503-0335.

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 is showing signs of upward movement as the holidays are past us, the cold weather is gone, for now.  Active listings are up almost 200 from two weeks ago, as sellers are coming back on the market after the holidays.

Homebuyer activity is still strong, as many have their eye on the April 30 deadline to have an accepted contract, as that will allow them to qualify for the First Time Homebuyer tax credit or the move up buyer tax credit.  With an accepted contract by April 30th, they will then have until June 30th to close.

Also, finally, the IRS has just released the new form that first time homebuyers will have to fill out in order to apply for the tax credit.  The one challenge with this form is that when you attach it to your 2009 Federal Tax filing, you must file in paper form, ie…mail it in.  E-filing will not be allowed, as the IRS is not set up as yet to accept attachments to their E-File tax return documents.  Bummer!

Below is more GREAT NEWSbrought to us by one of our compadres, Jason Palliser at Prospect Mortgage.  This article appeared on Jason’s web site and on the real estate investor web site, REI Blackbook.

If you haven’t heard as of yet, HUD has removed the 90 day seasoning rule for FHA purchases of foreclosed homes, investor owned homes, etc…for one year, beginning February 1st, 2010.

 HUD TAKES ACTION TO SPEED RESALE OF FORECLOSED PROPERTIES TO NEW OWNERS
Measure to help bring stability to home values and accelerate sale of vacant properties

   WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

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 is in our typical cold weather, winter mode. We are seeing less active listings, less homes accepting contracts, which has dropped the pending ratio somewhat to 11.9 percent.

Even though it’s bitter cold right now, we are still experiencing buyer activity, fueled by the extended tax credit and favorable interest rates.  Homes in the First Time Homebuyer price ranges continue to get showings.  Sellers in the market now should have an upper hand on those who are waiting, as buyers have less to choose from now, but are still making the decision to buy.

This cold weather serves as a reminder that this new year is still a great time to make sure your home is up to date regarding energy efficiency.  You can still receive a tax credit for updating windows, doors, roofing, HVAC systems, and even alternative energy sources.  Some improvements have a deduction up to 30% of their cost.  You can find out more by clicking HERE.

   WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

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 is preparing for Christmas with less active listings and less homes accepting contracts, dropping our pending ratio to just over 12 percent.  Our homes sold in the last six months has tapered off a bit, but still remains over 200 more than last year at this time.  Expired listings have increased a bit, as some homeowners will be staying off the market until after the holidays and after the first of the year. 

Those homeowners staying off the market may wish they hadn’t, as there are still a good number of  first time homebuyers in the market. 

From our partners at Gorman and Gorman Home Loans comes this real estate news update:

Last week the Federal Reserve kept the Fed Funds Rate at the 0.0% to 0.25% range and reiterated that interest rates will remain low for an “extended period.” The Fed did say that economic activity picked up since the last meeting in November. The statement went on to say that deterioration in the labor markets is abating.

One very important note – the Fed took the time to reiterate that their Mortgage Backed Security purchase program will end on March 31, 2010 as previously stated. There had been some speculation that the program might continue beyond the March 31st date, but the inclusion of this reiteration in the Fed’s Policy Statement leads us to believe that the Fed is trying to make it clear that this program will terminate as scheduled. Source: CNN/Money

The inventory of completed but unsold new houses fell to 239,000 at the end of October, according to the National Association of Home Builders. That’s the fewest since May 1971, when the inventory stood at 236,000. The months’ supply — that is, the amount of time it would take to sell the current inventory at October’s sales rate — fell to 6.7 months, which the NAHB says is “respectable.” The historic high was set in January, when the supply topped out at 12.4 months. Meanwhile, the inventory of unsold existing houses fell in October to 3 million, and the month’s supply dipped to 6.8 months. The supply of resale houses hit its cyclical peak in June 2008, when it reached 11 months. Source: National Mortgage News

Note:  Our Market Watch Report will not be published next weekend.

   WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

 The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week heads for the Holidays with activity slowing just a bit.  Buyer activity is still very good, especially in the lower price ranges anywhere from $280,000 and down.  Why $280,000, you ask?

In the St. Louis Metropolitan area, FHA lending limits for single family homes are $281,000, and with a great number of buyers choosing to use FHA lending, it stands to reason that these price ranges will have the most activity.

One item to note is that for the second week in a row,  the “homes sold” in the past six months of 2009 have exceeded “homes sold” in the same time period of 2008 by 7.3 percent.  It looks as though some of the home buyer assistance programs are working.  

 Buyers in all price ranges are understanding the value in the marketplace right now and moving forward instead of waiting.  Buyers that are looking for “deals” and willing to do a little work to the home are also finding great bargains in foreclosures and short sales, thus keeping the buying activity moving along.

For would-be buyers that aren’t considering buying now due to lack of a down payment,  credit issues or any other reason,  we have discovered something that may be of help to you. 

We recently, this week, got involved with a program which allows a buyer to purchase a home with 100 percent conventional financing, no down payment, no closing costs, don’t need perfect credit, and at below market rates.

WAIT…I know what you are thinking….sounds too good to be true,  this is a scam, or it’s some “creative” financing arrangement.  NOT SO.

The program is provided through the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America,  NACA.  It is real,  and they have helped individuals throughout the country for the past 20 years become homeowners  through common sense approach to lending and anti-predatory lending assistance.

Check them out at www.NACA.com.  You will be amazed at how they can help.

   WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

The St. Louis Real Estate market this week continues with our Holiday slow-down in both seller and buyer activity.  

For a brief look back this year, we took a look at the change in list prices and sales prices for the past six months compared with the some six month time frame last year.  We found that average list prices fluctuated between 1 percent and 3 percent and sales prices fluctuated between 0 percent and 1.7 percent.  The big differences in all price ranges continues to be the number of days that a home stays on the market before it is sold.  Compared to the last six months of last year, days on market fluctuated between 13.6 percent up to 51.3 percent.

Take a look for yourself; you can download and print this comparison HERE 

Ben Bernanke speaks today, Monday, Dec. 7th which will give us a good idea as to what home loan rates will be doing in the near future.  He will be speaking at the Economic Club in Washington today.  This will be the first time we will hear from him since the better-than-expected jobs report came out last Friday.

The FED also meets next week for the final time this year to implement policy for the nation’s financial system.  There has been some talk of the FED raising the interest rates a bit sooner than previously thought.  That may have to change according to James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, as he beleives the Fed needs to pay attention to future asset bubbles.

Another concern is, What will happen to home loans if the Federal Reserve stops buying mortgage-backed securities next March?  If and when the program ends, rates will rise, but most financial observers say it is very likely they won’t skyrocket.  Keith Gumbinger, a vice president at financial publishers, HSH Associates, predicts that the end of Fed intervention will push rates up about three-quarters of a point for a 30-year conforming loan-somewhere in the mid-5 percent range.  By late 2010, Gumbinger says the rate will be closer to 6 percent.  Michael Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research, is dubious that the Fed will actually end the  program.  He contends that the Fed will continue buying securities as long as the housing recovery is tenuous.  And as long as the Fed continues to donimate that market, “we’re not really going to move the needle on rates,” Larson says.  Source: Smart Money.
Information for this article has been contributed by our friends at Gorman and Gorman Home Loans.  Thanks, Guys!!

   WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW is facing challenges in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market?? We have unique solutions custom tailored for troubled homeowners, sellers and buyers.  Contact us for more information.

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!

 Our St. Louis Real Estate Market this week is definitely showing signs of Holiday Slow-Down.  Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen active listings decline by 243 listings and homes accepting contracts have declined by 175.   Due to this decline, our pending ratio has dropped to 12.77 percent as compared to 16.03 percent just two weeks ago. 

Blame the holidays and we think first time homebuyer activity has slowed a bit since the extension has passed.  First Time Homebuyers are not faced with such a small window of opportunity any more. Now they have until the end of April 2010 to get a home under contract and until the end of June 2010 to get their deal closed. 

After spending some time in Pontiac, Michigan last weekend, all I can say is that we should count our blessings that we don’t live in the suburbs of Detriot.

We talked to numerous real estate agents and investors who live and work in the Detroit, Michigan area and heard many accounts of homes selling for pennies on the dollar all around the area. 

It is not uncommon for homes around the Pontiac area and Flint area to be selling for 10 cents to 50 cents on the dollar.  These homes range from low price point, investor/rehabber type homes up to pretty homes in the $250,000 to $400,000 dollar range. 

Remember the Pontiac Silverdome??  A year or two ago it was valued at between 20-30 million dollars.  A couple weeks ago it sold, at auction, to a group of investors for a little over $500,000 dollars!  The sale is being challenged in court, but this may be a quick view into the future of where some commercial real estate is heading, and not just in Michigan.

The area is deemed to be so lucrative for investors these days, that many are coming from other parts of the country to invest in Michigan real estate. We even ran across an investor from Australia, who is living in Michigan temporarily and investing in properties in and around the Detriot area.

Between the problems plaguing the auto industry and the real estate industry in Michigan, their challenges are compounded greatly. 

   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!! 

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 moves into the bottom half of November with activity at a level much like the past several weeks-steady.  We are seeing a few less listings coming on the market, but our pending numbers (homes accepting contracts) is still very strong. 

Compared to last year at this time,  we are seeing over 200 more homes in the “pending” column with less active listings than last year.  Our average pending ratio this week sits at 16.043 percent compared to last year at 10.27 percent.

We hope to see our pending ratios through-out the winter months continue to better last year,  as the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit extension should keep buyers, and sellers, in the market during this time period.

We are talking to sellers who have told us that they are specifically in the  market now because of the tax credit extension.  They realize that if they wait until after the first of the year,  they have a short 4 months to not only get their home sold, but to find themselves another home and take advantage of the $6500 dollar move up buyer tax credit. 

NOTE: We will not be publishing our Market Watch report next weekend, as we will be in Pontiac, Michigan for a real estate “boot camp”. The boot camp will give us more insight and education on how to help people in our challenging real estate market  with unique solutions to getting their homes bought or sold.

   While we are there, we’ll scope out the Detriot Metropolitan real estate market and see if they are showing any signs of recovery and how the Tax Credit extension is working for them.

   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!!