The U.S. Housing Bust Is Over

This is the consensus on the street. Check the WSJ article here.

The housing market has turned—at last.

The U.S. finally has moved beyond attention-grabbing predictions from housing "experts" that housing is bottoming. The numbers are now convincing.

Nearly seven years after the housing bubble burst, most indexes of house prices are bending up. "We finally saw some rising home prices," S&P's David Blitzer said a few weeks ago as he reported the first monthly increase in the slow-moving S&P/Case-Shiller house-price data after seven months of declines.

 Economists aren't always right, but on this at least they agree: A new Wall Street Journal survey of forecasters found 44 believe the housing market has reached its bottom; only three don't.

CMBS Delinquencies Hit All-Time High

The delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) moved up 12 basis points in June to 10.16 percent, reaching an all-time high, according to a report from Trepp.

There was one positive side to the report. Trepp stated that most five-year loans originated in 2007 were made in the first six months of that year, and so now that we are halfway into 2012, this means the number of five-year loans from 2007 are reaching their maturity dates and will fall off over the next six months.

Read the whole article here.

JC: This may mark the peak of the CMBS delinquency. Will the trend get better from here?

Why Aren’t There More Homes for Sale?

It’s no secret to anyone who has watched the real-estate market over the past year that the number of homes for sale has dropped sharply, especially in hard-hit markets such as Miami, Orlando and Phoenix.

Economists at CoreLogic have new evidence showing how big price declines are keeping many home sellers on the sidelines. They found that the supply of homes for sale declines as the rate of negative equity — or the share of borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth — rises.

Many hard-hit markets have seen an influx of well-funded investors scooping up foreclosures that can be rented out, meaning inventory is being taken off the market, at least for now.

Meanwhile, banks have sharply slowed down their foreclosure processes after being caught fraudulently processing the paperwork required to take back those properties two years ago.

Read more on WSJ 6/11/2012 here.

Foreign Purchases of U.S. Homes Rise Strongly

WSJ June 11, 2012,

A survey released Monday showed that the six-year slide in U.S. housing prices, coupled with the rising value of some foreign currencies and continued instability in Europe, is fueling a property-buying binge in the U.S. by wealthy foreigners.

The survey showed that around 55% of all buyers came from five countries: Canada, China, Mexico, India and the United Kingdom. Canadians accounted for nearly one quarter of all foreign sales.

See the whole article here.

Many Home Owners still way underwater

Here is the complete list of metropolitan areas and their underwater mortgage rates from Zillow’s report:

• Las Vegas: 71%
• Phoenix: 55.5%
• Atlanta: 55.2%
• Orlando: 53.9%
• Riverside, Calif.: 53.4%
• Sacramento, Calif.: 51.2%
• Detroit: 49.8%
• Tampa, Fla.: 48.3%
• Miami - Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: 46.4%
• Chicago: 41.1%
• Minneapolis - St. Paul, Minn.: 39.9%
• Seattle: 39.6%
• Charlotte, N.C.: 36.6%
• San Diego: 35.6%
• Portland: 34.3%
• Columbus, Ohio: 34.2%
• Cleveland: 33.9%
• Virginia Beach, Fla.: 33.2%
• Washington D.C.: 32.4%
• Baltimore: 31.4%
• Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas: 30.7%
• San Francisco: 30.7%
• St. Louis: 30.7%
• Los Angeles: 30%
• Denver: 29%
• Philadelphia: 25%
• San Jose, Calif.: 22.7%
• Boston: 22%
• New York: 21.3%
• Pittsburgh: 16.7%
• U.S. average: 31.4%

Read the whole article here. 

Shadow Inventory: 46 Months to Clear Distressed Housing Supply

It will take 46 months to clear the market’s supply of distressed homes, or the shadow inventory, according to estimates from Standard & Poor’s Rating Services based on first-quarter 2012 data.

Read the whole article here. 

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It is 4 years away to clear all of them. I think the end of bank foreclosure is near. The impact from bank distressed properties will lesson in 1 - 2 years.

LPS: Home Prices Increased, but We've Been Down This Road Before

For the first time since March 2010, data from Lender Processing Services (LPS) showed an increase in home prices. 

“Reasons for caution are clear, as we’ve been here before. Non-seasonally adjusted prices increased for a few months in early 2009, 2010 and 2011 – trends that all ended by summer, after which all the gains – and then some – were lost,” said Raj Dosaj, VP of LPS Applied Analytics.


Read the whole article here.