This is a great commercial from Toyota

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Y3AsZ19Hc

Plummeting values are only part of the housing market story. Equally important are the gains owners saw between 2001 and 2006.

By Kenneth Harney, Washington Post Writers Group

Last update: November 21, 2007 – 12:00 PM

With the daily din of bad news about the housing market, it’s easy to lose sight of some larger economic realities: Despite declining prices in many markets, homeowners still control near-record equity holdings, just under $11 trillion.

For the Full Story, GO TO: http://www.startribune.com/417/story/1563932.html

 

KARE 11 News Story on the Twin Cities Housing Market showing fewer home listings now than a year ago. Shorter average time on the market - 71 days. New listings down 4%. Average home value down by 2.13%

http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=55368

Great article from Inman News

Case may otherwise go to trial in June or July

Thursday, November 15, 2007

By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News

LAS VEGAS — The National Association of Realtors may engage in discussions with U.S. Justice Department officials in an effort to settle an antitrust lawsuit that was filed more than two years ago.

“If we’re unsuccessful in reaching any type of a satisfactory resolution, the case looks like it will go to trial in about June or July of next year,” said Laurie Janik, general counsel for the National Association of Realtors, on Wednesday during a committee meeting at the association’s annual conference.

The lawsuit charges that the association adopted illegally restrictive rules for the online sharing and display of property listings information among real estate market participants that could be used to discriminate against market participants.

She said that the evidence-gathering phase of the lawsuit is nearly complete, and later this month or in December association officials “will take a breather,” assess the status of the case and consider the prospect of settling the lawsuit “on mutually agreeable terms.”

Janik also offered a report on other legal matters, including investigations by several state attorneys general that have led to requests for information from several multiple listing services.

Multiple listing services “are very much under the microscope” these days, Janik said, and are being watched closely by federal agencies such as the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, as well as state agencies.

Any actions that MLSs take that could impact their members’ conduct “is going to be scrutinized by them,” Janik said, particularly if it involves an industry participant that is offering a discount or a rebate.

The intense scrutiny, she said, applies to both Realtor-affiliated and non-Realtor-affiliated MLSs.

MLSs should dump any rules on their books that are antiquated, out of date, or are not enforced by MLSs, she said. “If you don’t enforce them, they shouldn’t be there.”

She said that once investigators are drawn to a particular MLS rule, they may expand their investigation to other MLS policies. “Once they are there they’re going to start looking at anything,” she said.

State officials in Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Minnesota and possibly other states have asked for access to MLS information, she said, to aid in the investigation of mortgage fraud. “They think that MLS statistics will help them in their investigations,” she said.

While it is voluntary for MLSs to provide this access, she said that those MLSs that decline to offer access may lead to subpoenas.

MLSs can work to limit the scope of the access and to track the access, she said. “You don’t want them going on a fishing expedition finding other potential violations of the law.”

She suggested that MLSs can ask investigators to specify the purpose of the access, and to supply investigators with read-only access to data to protect existing MLS data. Also, providing accounts to individual investigators would allow MLSs to track access of the MLS, she said.

The National Association of Realtors has committed more than $800,000 in legal assistance to defend a mapping patent lawsuit filed against a Pennsylvania Realtor.

The patent holders had sought class-action status for that case to charge a larger group of Realtors with infringement, though Janik said that the judge has denied class-action certification.

She also noted that a contentious legal battle between shareholders of a Chicago-area MLS is ongoing. The shareholders have sought to block the merger of a large Realtor association-owned MLS with a smaller, competing broker-owned MLS, and that case is under appeal.

This morning, RealtyTrac released its Q3 2007 foreclosure data for the

United States. The Good news is that Minneapolis homes, St. Paul homes and other areas of Twin Cities homes did not make the top 10 list. Unfortunately, Florida homes did.

The leading cities for foreclosures are:

1. Stockton, CA (1 per 31 households)
2. Detroit, MI (1 per 33 households)
3. Riverside/San Bernardino, CA (1 per 43 households)
4. Fort Lauderdale, FL (1 per 48 households)
5. Las Vegas, NV (1 per 48 households)
6. Sacramento, CA (1 per 48 households)
7. Cleveland, OH (1 per 57 households)
8. Miami, FL (1 per 60 households)
9. Bakersfield, CA (1 per 64 households)
10. Oakland, CA (1 per 71 households)

Looking more closely, we can see pattern.

California, Nevada, and Florida are well represented and that makes sense. Between 2002 and 2006, these areas were popular with speculators, many of whom used 2- and 3-year adjustable rate mortgages that did not require income verification, nor did they require down payments in excess of 5 percent.

These loans are now adjusting and in 2007, mortgages for investors are more stringent. They typically require a 10-20% equity position and verifiable income.

With no mortgage options, no buyer bailouts, and no means to pay the bills, many speculators are choosing to walk away from their investments. Hence, the high foreclosure rates in California,Nevada, and Florida.

Rounding out the top 10 are Detroit and Cleveland.

Foreclosures in these cities make sense, too. Both have been decimated by job losses in the auto and manufacturing industries and without jobs, homeowners can’t pay the bills.

In other words, foreclosures are often not the result of a “bad mortgage”, but instead a “bad investment” or a “bad economy”.

The entire list of foreclosures by MSA are available on RealtyTrac’s Web site.

 

The media seems bent on making the subprime mortgage issues and the housing slowdown into a “CRISIS”. Perhaps they were disappointed in not predicting the stock market crash of 2000 and now they want to be sure to be ahead of the curve. Instead, they helped to create it. The following article takes a measured look at the supposed “mortgage crisis.” Liked it so much that I have it entirely posted.

Lincoln Anderson, LPL Financial Service’s Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director.

November 2, 2007

There are the subprime “crisis” headlines, and then there are the macroeconomics and the numbers that reveal the actual overall impact of subprime mortgage defaults. The headlines say that the situation is a really big deal with broad implications for the economy and financial markets. The economics and the numbers tell a different story. Here are some numbers: Total U.S. credit market debt is about $46 trillion. Take out Federal, state and local government debt, and the private sector debt total is about $23 trillion. Total subprime mortgage debt outstanding is about $1.3 trillion, and about 16% of these subprime loans are in default. Suppose (very conservatively) the lenders only get about 50% of the value of the defaulted loans by selling the collateral (the houses) or giving new loan terms. Then we would have a $100 billion loss. Now that may sound like a big number, but as a percent of total private debt it is less than one half of one percent.

The ball park $100 billion loss number is a big deal for some companies and some investors, but it is, in my opinion, nowhere near big enough to have broad macroeconomic or investment consequences. The total bond and equity markets have market value swings exceeding one percent all the time. The Lehman Aggregate Bond Index has dropped more than one percent in one month 41 times in the last 31 years; the latest instance was in September 2005. And, of course, one percent or more losses in value in the overall

U.S.equity market are quite common.

Think back to Katrina. The dollar losses exceeded $100 billion and with much real devastation and destruction, not just paper losses; yet the macroeconomic and broad market impacts were relatively minor and short lived. The

U.S.economy is very large, well diversified and, I think, well positioned to deal with these crises and keep on ticking. I do not see a recession developing from these mortgage problems.

To that point, on Friday, November 2, we got the employment report. It shows a gain of 166,000 in payroll employment in October, following a gain of 296,000 over the third quarter. And third quarter real GDP rose 3.9%, despite another big drop in home construction. Inflation does not appear to be a problem, with the GDP price index rising at an annual rate of 0.8% in the third quarter. Given the low inflation, I think the Federal Reserve did the right thing in cutting the fed funds rate to 4.5% on October 31.

I continue to watch credit markets closely and will report if I see signs that point to worsening conditions, but for now I think these problems are contained and that economic and market prospects remain sound. As always, please call me with any questions or concerns.

Lincoln

Anderson

Managing Director, Chief Investment Officer

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult me prior to investing. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly.

 

 

I was so disappointed to hear that some Real Estate Agents and Mortgage Brokers are telling folks that www.webdigs.com is a SCAM. This came to light because one of our Agents received a call from a gal, wanting to buy a home (she saw one of our TV ads) using webdigs.com, but a mortgage loan officer, a real estate agent, a real estate broker had each told her that webdigs.com was a scam. The good news was that she called us to ask about our program, saying “I knew this could work and I wanted to talk with you about it.” I was proud of the way Tom Meckey, WebDigs Agent and soon to be Broker, fielded the questions and explained our programs and services to her satisfaction. She has started to work with Tom to find a home and is telling other folks about us. The outcome was good for her because she went the extra mile to call us and ask for clarification.

But it was so disappointing to hear that some members of our industry are making up these accusations and telling deliberate falsehoods about www.webdigs.com This is particularly distressing since it is a violation of our Ethics Rules as members of the National Association of Realtors, to demean other members and deliberately spread falsehoods. It is also distressing because WebDigs Agents are professional, conscientious people who do their best every day to provide a great service – and they deliver every day. Giving our customers back money through our Commission Sharing program has been a tremendous boom to people buying a home. Listing and selling homes for a Flat Fee plus the Buyers Brokers split saves our clients significant money. AND IT IS ALL PERFECTLY WITHIN THE LAW. And the US Department of Justice has just launched a new website explaining all that and encouraging consumers to consider new ways to buy and sell homes using exceptional services such as www.webdigs.com

I hope that everyone will take a moment and go to http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/real_estate/index.htm and look around. If you just have a few moments go to http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/real_estate/states_map.htm

Where you can see a map showing the laws of each state.

 

When we first started www.webdigs.com , I was creating an outreach program to inform other real estate agents and brokers about our service. I wanted to let them know that they would be paid their same commission structure as when workin with the 6% brokers. Clearly there would be some concern since our pricing was significantly different from the full commission folks. Things evolved so quickly for us that the outreach program was put on the back burner as we rushed to complete web development and then to make the improvements which would be important to our clients. This Friday, we closed on our first home buyer purchase over $1,000,000 Our buyers bought their new home for $1,250,000 and received a check from www.webdigs.com for $22,500 as a result of our commission sharing program (we give back to our buyers 2/3 of our commission) After the sale closed my agent, Jesse, was berated by the agent for the seller - telling him that our business model was wrong and that he should come learn about what the full commission guys could offer him. He declined the invitation because, as he mentioned, the real estate industry is undergoing a fundamental change in which the consumer will be the winner - benefitting from lower transaction costs. In a way, this story was distressing to me. We were concerned that some might see us as rocking the boat of full commission real estate agents. Seems that some do.

And fortunately, the US Department of Justice is helping to pave the way. Go to

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/real_estate/index.htm

This site was just launched within the last 2 weeks and clearly describes the benefits to consumers of the way we do our real estate brokerage business. Indeed, the DOJ has commenced actions in states which to not allow consumer rebates. Happy reading.