Uncategorized

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

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

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!!

WHO DO YOU KNOW that’s thinking of buying or selling a home?

Contact Doug Aegerter or Art Wagner for more information and a FREE Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) of your home or your neighborhood.

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 11.23.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 15th, 2008

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 15th, 2008
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week has our pending ratio dropping from last week to 10.27 percent, with a few more active listings and a few less homes accepting contracts. This “slow down” is very typical in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market for this time of the year, however, it feels worse this year, as we are well below last year’s buyer and seller activity levels.

What makes this year different than last year also is the $700 Billion Dollar Bail-Out (OR Capital Injection)plan recently approved and now talk about another Stimulus Package possibly coming down the road. It’s no wonder buyers and sellers alike are waiting to see what’s going to happen next.

If you read, listen, watch the news, credit and lending are loosening a bit. WHERE?? We are not seeing it here yet. We think it will take another three to six months before we see any noticable improvements with lending institutions really beginning to lend again. That’s what we need to happen to even hope to instill consumer confidence back into the market.

This past week, Unemployment claims have risen again, and this time above the 90 day average by 25,000 to 516,000 and October retail sales have dropped 2.8 percent. The National Federation of Independant Business has said that small business sales conditions were the worst since 1980. There doesn’t seem to be much consumer confidence evident here yet. Read Lou Barnes’ article posted on Inman News this past Friday entitled, “Economy needs full $700 billion, and more” HERE.

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!!

WHO DO YOU KNOW that’s thinking of buying or selling a home?

Contact Doug Aegerter or Art Wagner for more information and a FREE Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) of your home or your neighborhood.

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Posted by Art Wagner | Read More | Your Comments Are Welcome! | 11.16.2008

St. Louis Real Estate – Mortgage News – Declining Markets

Filed under: Uncategorized

Declining Markets by Chris Scheer, Branch Manager, Cornerstone Mortgage, O’Fallon, MO

As the foreclosures and short sales begin to take effect on the housing market one of the single biggest changes that is occurring is the dreaded “Declining Market” label attached to a property in the appraisal. I have seen investors make the predetermination that certain zip codes, cities and counties are in declining markets and thus they are lowering their exposure by reducing the maximum loan on the properties in that area. Other investors have said that they will only apply declining market guides if the appraisal states that the property is in a declining market. Either way, when the declining market rules come into play, the only person that loses is the borrower.

Here are a few examples:

• The borrower is planning on putting only 5% down to purchase the property and the investor has deemed that entire zip code to be a declining market. They will only lend on the property if the buyer puts 10% down.
• An investor is planning to purchase a home with 10% down and the appraiser notes that the property is in a declining market. Now the investor has to put 15% down to get the loan.

In both cases if the borrower has the additional 5% it is an inconvenience, but the transaction will still go forward. But if the borrower does not have the additional 5%, then the deal is dead. In most cases the seller has lost valuable days marketing their property while the waiting for the buyer to get loan commitment.

Now that we know the challenges this brings I will discuss the inadequacy of how this is applied in my next post.

Chris Scheer