according to RealtyTac and banks issued fewer first-time default notices. Banks are selling more property and foreclosing on less. This is exactly what is needed to get housing market going again.
and you can read numerous articles about the National Association of Realtors big mistake. Existing home sales numbers, released monthly, will be revised down for the past five years on Dec 21st.
Chief economist Lawrence Yun said the database NAR uses to track existing home sales, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), has led the real estate agency to over-count existing home sales. The MLS database only includes home sales listed by realtors, and excludes homes listed by owners, providing a very narrow view of the market. And because people are using realtors to list their homes instead of selling them independently, realtor-listed sales numbers have become artificially inflated, said Yun.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 67.7 this month from 64.1 at the end of last month. Like many statistics of late, improvement continues, but still below average.
FSBO.com predicts the real estate market to improve in 2012, still below historic averages, but big improvements over 2010 & 2011
this forecast by TransUnion, one of the three credit bureaus. Delinquency rates (the ratio of borrowers 60 or more days behind on their payments) could drop to 5 percent. Well off the peak of 6.89 percent seen in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Jobs are important to improve the economy and housing. Today, the Labor Department reported that employers added 120,000 jobs in November after an increase of 100,000 positions in October. The labor market continues to heal, albeit slowly. Interest rates rose on this news. This should be the scenario all through 2012.
Construction spending, up for a third straight month, rose 0.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $798.5 billion, according to the Commerce Department. While an improvement, that’s barely half the $1.5 trillion that economists consider healthy.
Today’s real estate news from the Realtor association reported that Inventories declined 2.2% nationwide to 3.3 million, reflecting 8.0 months of supply at current sales rates. That’s the lowest level of inventory for October since 2005. Also, sales in October rose 1.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million from 4.9 million in September.
The index of U.S. leading indicators rose 0.9 percent in October, the biggest jump since February, after a 0.1 percent September, signaling the US economy will keep growing in early 2012.
Gains in consumer spending, manufacturing and home building, combined with fewer job losses, point to an economy that is weathering the turbulence in financial markets caused by the debt crisis in Europe.
Builders showing signs of improvement with building permits, a proxy for future construction, increased 10.9 percent in October according to the Commerce Department. New construction of single-family houses climbed 3.9 percent to a three-month high of 430,000.
Curious of the how the candidates live, here is a link to view their personal residence. Click on the link: