Melbourne Florida Homes for Sale

The president announced a plan to funnel $1.5 B to housing agencies in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada. The plan is designed to help the states that have been impacted the most over the downturn in the real estate market and rising unemployment rates.

Florida currently tops the nation in loan defaults with more than 20% of all mortgages that are seriously delinquent or in foreclosure. The idea is that although this amount is a drop in the bucket, that it will encourage states to think creatively and find solutions to the struggles in the housing market.

The Making Home Affordable Program has struggled to help unemployed homeowners who can not qualify for modifications based on their income. It is also an attempt to tackle the thorniest issue to come from the mortgage meltdown – how to cope with homeowners in upside-down loans.

The $1.5 B is coming from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and can be used to help negotiate with lenders to write down mortgages on underwater loans. The money will be distributed to states based on a formula that considers home price declines and unemployment.

The hopes are this new program can help the states that are in the most trouble based on local conditions.

The U.S. Commerce Department says sales rose 6.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 430,000 from an upwardly revised 405,000 in September. Sales of new homes rose more than expected last month to the highest level in more than a year as the housing market shows stability after its historic collapse.

Home shoppers in October were acting before lawmakers decided to extend a tax credit for first-time buyers and expand it to existing homeowners. Nevertheless, sales were up 5.1 percent from a year ago, the first yearly increase since November 2005.

The median sales price of $212,200 was off 0.5 percent from $213,200 a year earlier, but up 0.7 percent from September’s level of $210,700.

I was reading a story in Newsweek this morning called “The Sky Isn’t Falling” which discussed among other things the media blitz on swine flu and the economic struggles of the world. When I read the headline I was hoping it would be some mea culpa from the media over the hype that they create that surrounds major news topics. It was in a way, but then the writer claims that if the media hadn’t alerted the public there may have not been the action (or overreactions) to these events by the government and public in general. So I guess this should be a “THANK YOU” to all those journalists that make this happen (yeah right!)

However, now that news is available 24/7 at lightening speeds through print, TV, radio, internet, twitter and any other communication channel you can think of, all of these outlets have reporters clammering to get the scoop and report on the “news”. Where are the days of responsible journalism when people took their time to craft a story based on balanced reporting and the facts? Sure media is biased because people are biased and they are always looking for a creative angle to tell the story differently. Maybe days of balanced reporting never existed but were merely an idealistic vision of what the news should be – NEWS!

I have been in this industry for over five years now and I don’t have near the experience that some veterans have in this industry. I have surely not seen the highs and lows that others have lived through in the real estate market. If you look back, real estate has doubled in value almost every ten years in the last half century. Astronomical interest rates were the norm back in the 80′s and we have all seen the recent rise and fall of values in volatile markets like California and Florida. While I have been in the industry I have watched the media praise builders years ago when they were producing record sales and record profits. I worked for a builder that was racing to be the largest in the country and deliver over 50,000 homes in a year. Home building was the media darling then. The next stories were then all about the real estate bubble and when it was going to burst. Now it is all about the industry decline, how builders ruined cities and the tales of foreclosure and how builders and mortgage lenders ruined the economy. Journalists are more than happy to skewer everyone when they were part of feeding into the hype and the overwhelming growth.

The real estate industry (like all industries) should feel used by the media. All of these headlines and stories were all designed to get readers/viewers to tune in to their programs, subscribe to their websites, read their publications and provide a base that advertisers could reach to sell even more products. Seems like a vicious cycle, huh? I guess I had a bit of a rant today and get frustrated from reading some “news”. I hope the public learns to digest what they take in from all these different outlets and use them to understand what is really going on in the world. And, yes, the sky is not falling down . . . yet . . .

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: May 4, 2009: 11:25 AM ET

– Is the housing meltdown ending?

Pending home sales rose in March for the second consecutive month and are up year over year. The Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors showed a 3.2% gain to 84.6 from February, when it was 82. The index stands 1.6% higher than a year ago.

The consensus forecast of industry experts polled by Briefing.com had predicted no increase in the index.

It may still take a while before the market gains enough momentum to firmly state that the downturn has been reversed, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. And, the upturn may have been boosted by the first-time homebuyers tax credit, a temporary measure that will lapse in December.

“We need several months of sustained growth to demonstrate a recovery in housing, which is necessary for the overall economy to turn around,” said Yun. “This increase could be the leading edge of first-time buyers responding to very favorable affordability conditions and an $8,000 tax credit, which increases buying power even more in areas where special programs allow buyers to use it as a down payment.”

The index is understood to be a forward indicator of home sales trends since it measures contracts signed, not completed sales. The up-tick may indicate that home prices have fallen low enough for buyers to get off the fence.

Yun is not calling a bottom yet, however, because the index is still at a relatively low level. Instead, he’s looking toward the summer selling season to determine what direction the market will take. Plus, he would like the number of homes on the market to drop to a more normal level of six to seven months of supply.

“If inventory goes down – it’s at just under 10 months now – to below eight months, that would mean we’re on the way to a sustainable recovery,” Yun said.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that trend may be happening. Realtors and other industry insiders are seeing rising open house attendance and multiple bids on some particularly desirable properties. Plus, pricing has become sharper, according to Sherry Chris, the CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate.

“Overpricing seems to be ending,” she said. “Properties are coming onto the market and selling quickly.”

And buyers are feeling a little more urgency, she added. In many markets, buyers have not felt any pressure to make an offer. “They said to themselves, ‘I don’t have to act immediately. It will still be on the market two weeks from now,’” she said.

Today, buyers are more likely to bid because they perceive the market as at or near its bottom. An April Gallup Poll reported that 71% of Americans thought it was a good time to buy a house.

They don’t, however, believe there will be price increases soon; three of four buyers think prices will stabilize or even decline in their areas over the next 12 months, according to Gallup.

Pat Newport, a real estate analyst for IHS Global Insight, is putting less emphasis on pending home sales than he once did for his housing market analyses. There has been a disconnect lately, he said, between the number of properties going into contract (pending home sales) and the number that actually close (existing home sales).

He speculates that this is because buyers are making offers and signing contracts but, because of financing problems, many deals are falling through.

The South saw the largest gain of any region, with pending home sales jumping 8.5%. Pending sales are 7.7% higher there compared with a year ago.

The Midwest gained 3.9% from February and 1.7% year-over-year. Northeast sales fell 5.7% and are off 24.1% compared with March 2008. The West dropped 1% for the month but are up 8.2% year-over-year.

Low home prices continued to help to drive sales, although NAR’s affordability index actually fell 2.3% from February, when it hit a historic high. This index is based on family income, home prices and mortgage rates.

“Compared to a year ago, the typical family can pay much less in mortgage costs for the same home, or buy a better home without necessarily increasing their monthly payment,” said NAR President Charles McMillan, in a prepared statement. “For buyers who’ve been on the sidelines and have good jobs, the market has never looked more favorable.

Dow jumps 246 on Wells Fargo’s record profit!
By Charley Blaine and Elizabeth Strott

Stocks finished a holiday-shortened week with a fifth straight weekly gain after a better-than-expected forecast from banking giant Wells Fargo (WFC, news, msgs) set off a big rally today.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) had gained 246 points, or 3.1%, to 8,083. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ($INX) was up 31 points, or 3.8%, to 857.

The Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) had added 62 points, or 3.9%, to 1,653, and the Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX.X), which tracks the largest Nasdaq stocks, was up 40 points, or 3%, to 1,340.

The last time the U.S. stock market had five straight weeks of gains was in September and early October 2007 — just as the market was hitting is all-time highs.

Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. banking company, said it expects record first-quarter profits — $3 billion or 55 cents a share. Wall Street had expected 26 cents a share. Pushing the profit gain has been raising business in mortgage refinancing.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported today that officials examining the banking industry say the group seems to be in better shape than many people think. But the report said, however, that many of the largest American lenders, despite all those bailouts, probably need to be bailed out again.

The Wells Fargo news — and stress test report — sent the stock up a whopping 31.3% to $19.54, its biggest one-day gain since July 2008. The report fueled a huge rally in financial stocks. The S&P financial exchange traded fund — technically the Select Sector SPDR-Financial (XLF, news, msgs) ETF — was up 10.2% to $10.15.

Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) was the leader among the 30 Dow stocks, rising 37% to $9.67.

American Express (AXP, news, msgs), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) and Citigroup (C, news, msgs) ranked right behind Bank of America.

American Express was up 19.7% to $18.84. JPMorgan Chase was up 20% to $32.84, and Citigroup was up 13.4% to $3.04.

“The worst is behind us,” Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Va., told Bloomberg News. “We’re working our way through the credit crisis, and that’s why the market is cheering.”

With today’s rally,the Dow regained all of its losses from Monday and particularly on Tuesday, when it fell 186 points. The finish will give the blue-chip index a 67-point gain on the week, or 0.8%.

The Dow is down 7.9% for the year, with the S&P 500 off 5.2%. The Nasdaq is up 4.8%, with the Nasdaq-100 up 10.6%.

The market rally that began on March 10 has now pushed the major indexes up 23% or more.