CAAR Blog

The tax portion of economic stimulus legislation working its way through Congress passed the House Ways & Means Committee and includes the elimination of the repayment feature of the $7,500 first-time home buyer tax credit, an action the Realtor organization supports. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to mark up its version of the tax provisions shortly and to maintain the repayment provision.

As mentioned in CAAR’s Year-End Market Report, there was a small surge in sales in December 08 and it seems that was the national trend as well. Nationally, December existing-home sales rose unexpectedly while inventory declined, led by a surge of sales in the West, NAR says. Sales jumped 6.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.74 million units from a downwardly revised pace of 4.45 million units in November. Sales remain 3.5 percent below the 4.91 million-unit pace in December 2007. For all of 2008 there were 4,912,000 existing-home sales, 13.1 percent below the 5,652,000 transactions recorded in 2007. This is the lowest volume since 1997 when there were 4,371,000 sales. Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 11.7 percent to 3.68 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.3-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a 11.2-month supply in November. “The higher monthly sales gain and falling inventory are steps in the right direction, but the market is still far from normal balanced conditions,” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Highlights from Yun’s press conference are on REALTOR® TV.

Source:  www.factfinder.census.gov (2000 Census data) and the Virginia Employment Commission (http://www.alex.vec.state.va.us/lmi/data/population/ ) (2010 and 2020 projections). 

Thanks to the good folks at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District for doing this research.

On January 13th, Fannie Mae announced the establishment of a new National Real Estate Owned (REO) Rental Policy that will allow qualified renters in Fannie Mae-owned foreclosed properties to stay in their homes. Currently, Fannie Mae has an eviction suspension in place through the end of January, which will allow for the new policy to be fully operational prior to that program concluding.

The new policy applies to renters occupying foreclosed properties at the time Fannie Mae acquires the property. Renters occupying any type of single-family property will be eligible including residents of two- to four-unit properties, condos, co-ops, single-family detached homes and manufactured housing. Eligible renters will be offered a new month-to-month lease with Fannie Mae or financial assistance for their transition to new housing should they choose to vacate the property. The properties must meet state laws and local code requirements for a rental property.

Fannie Mae news release announcing national REO Policy >

From The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission

TJPDC is proud to be one of the sponsors of a free Television and Electronics Recycling Event being held on Saturday, January 31 in front of Crutchfield at the Rio Hill Shopping Center. The Charlottesville Community Design Center, Crutchfield, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, TJPDC, Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, Papa John’s Pizza, and UVA Recycling are partnering for this event in anticipation of the switch to digital TV signals on February 17. The event will be held rain or shine from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day (though a snow date is scheduled for Saturday February 7). The full press release is available here. The event is free and open to the public, with no strings attached. Click here for a list of acceptable and unacceptable items for this event; click here for the E-waste Fact Sheet.

Zillow.com is a national web site that offers some innovative services and market perspectives.  They are most famous for their Zestimates where homeowners can see an automated evaluation of what their house may be worth.  Zillow has limited data at this time on the Charlottesville market area, so Zestimates are not considered to be very accurate for our area, but the concept of automated valuations is very popular with Internet users (isn’t that everyone). 

Now, NAR has done a little evaluation of Zillow and Jed Smith, Managing Director, Quantitative Research has issued a detailed report. 

The housing market is down and the outlook for the economy is very cloudy. The housing correction is intensifying. Recent data confirms the need for a real-estate focused stimulus package to prevent it from overcorrecting. So far, the Obama team has not been very detailed about stimulus related to the housing market. However, several key members of Congress indicated adding housing measures to Obama’s broad economic stimulus package, including raising the loan limit on Fannie and Freddie loans and using TARP funds to keep mortgage rates at historically attractive levels. A home buyer tax credit also is being considered. Read more about proposed stimulus plans and measures below:
Effective Implementation Critical for Home Buyer Tax Credit Success (press release) >
Bernanke and Kohn on the Economic Crisis >
A Plan for Lower Mortgage Rates >
The Future for Fannie and Freddie >

NAR Research has two interactive maps that now bring you both state and local housing data with just a click of the mouse. Using the Median Home Price interactive map, you can zoom in to your metropolitan statistical area to get the latest quarterly median home price for your market, and its percentage change from the previous quarter. The State Existing Home Sales map allows you to click within the borders of your state to see its Existing Home Sales value for the past quarter and to see the change percentage from the previous quarter, and the previous year.
Find your market’s median home price >
Find the value of homes sold in your state >

2008 certainly was a year to remember in real estate, but many are happy to forget 2008 and move into 2009.  Follow the link below to see all the numbers the local Charlottesville real estate market produced in a tough year for lenders, Realtors, builders and other industry professionals.

2008 CAAR Year-end Market Report