Pending Home Sales Plummet 12% In July
Pending home sales plummeted in July—dropping 12%—the steepest drop since the pending sales index was created and nearly 5 times what analysts were estimating.
Let's hope all those subprime borrowers have good credit. Wait a sec...
``The housing market is bad and is going to stay bad for some time,'' said Zach Pandl, an economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, who predicted a 3 percent drop. ``This number does not look good for existing home sales for August.''The median forecast was for a decrease of 2.2 percent, according to a survey of 26 analysts. Estimates ranged from a drop of 4 percent to an increase of 1.5 percent.
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President George W. Bush on Aug. 31 said he will let the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages for low- and middle-income borrowers, guarantee loans for delinquent borrowers. The new program will allow homeowners with a good credit rating who can't afford their current payments to refinance into FHA-insured home loans.
U.S. Economy: Pending Home Sales Plunge 12.2%, Most on Record [Bloomberg]
(Photo:stirwise)
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My FHA 6.25% 30 year fixed I closed a month ago sure feels goooooooooooooood right now :P
Um...it would seem to me that if you can't afford your payments, it's likely that your credit rating would have already fallen out of the "good" range. Just sayin'.
We sold our 1 bedroom condo in July and bought a 3-bedroom townhouse close to the beach (for a helluva price, too). I'm bringing this up because just last night we got a letter from our lender telling us they're filing for bankruptcy and sold our loan to WaMu. I was cracking up.
No worries. Our loan must legally remain exactly the same as we agreed to it. I just find it hilarious that our lender, less than a month after "lending" to us, is going under. They must've known it was coming, as when we went down to their office they were packing things up, supposedly moving to one of their larger branch offices. Yeah, I guess that branch was the unemployment line.
What people keep failing to realize is how difficult and drawn out a process getting an FHA loan is. Good luck getting that FHA Re-Fi before the bank comes knocking on your door looking for your house.
@ ONETAKEDIZZLE: "What people keep failing to realize is how difficult and drawn out a process getting an FHA loan is."
I got one several years ago, and it wasn't that difficult or drawn out. Maybe a few extra documents were required on our part, but all in all it was not a painful process for us since we were organized and planned well.
Unless the process has changed drastically over the past few years, it's not a difficult process.
these post about the mortgage market make me sad.
I'm trying to sell my home and one prospective buyer got pre-approved for the price of the house but not to include the $4k in closing cost. I already dropped the price of the house by about 3% while still giving several bonus features.
I live in MS and there is a first-time home buyers bond program to help out with closing and/or down payments that the people trying to buy my house DO qualify for but there may not be enough money left this late in the year to help them out. :( :(
@brianala: My wife and I had no trouble. Could be that my father-in-law has a fat account with the lending bank that helped grease some wheels, but compared to my best friend's non-FHA experience a few months back, it was about the same.
Isn't this regional though. I mean, there were some places booming that are kinda no where.
So I live near washington DC, I own a small townhome, I am both torn and excited to see this crash, it is an adjustment that is sorely needed.
Sure I won't be able to sell my town home for as much a profit, if any at all. But I'll be able to rent it out and buy a single family detatched home.
Mind you my budget is 320k and that will put me in the market for a crappy single family home in a not so good neighboor hood. (CRASH CRASH CRASH... :) )
I make good money, ok, pretty insane amount of money, but even with a good income I could barely afford a townhome till recently.
celer
Now, that's not fair. The housing market is fucking outstanding if you're buying.