Study: Rental housing is ‘out of reach' for many

posted by SooYeon(Pia), Shin

A new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that rental housing is more difficult to find and too expensive for an increasing number of families.

The study, “Out of Reach 2009,” found that a household must earn $37,105 a year to afford the national average two-bedroom fair-market rent of $928 a month. Someone working full-time, year-round would have to make $17.84 an hour to afford it, according to guidelines that say no more than 30 percent of income should be spent on housing.
Yet the average hourly wage of a family that rents housing in the United States is just $14.69.

In Asheville, according to the report, a two-bedroom rental costs an average $690, 33 percent more than the average in 2000. A renter would need to make $13.27 an hour to afford it. At a mean wage for Asheville renters of $11.14 an hour, that means a renter would have to work 48 hours a week to afford it.

For someone trying to live on Social Security disability, there is not a single city in the country where an unsubsidized apartment is affordable.

Click here to read more.

House Market on a Possible Rise

By Alcides Hoy Jr.

With the recent economic crisis everyone is giving up on spending. Yet it seems as if hope is being restored back into the housing market. Industry reports show that in February there was an increase in the sales of existing homes. This was strong recovery from January downhill housing market sales. I know many of you are asking it is time to jump back into the housing market? I cant say but I also cant say no by a long shot. This is definitely a time to retreat back into research mode and find about how the market is looking. Many of us wonder with the fluctuating market lately how could we put our trust back into the industry. Sales for the current month increased nearly six percent from its declining five percent in February. Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said there's a "good chance" the collapse in home sales that has been going on since September is "now over." There you have it folks a professional giving you some assurance that we might be able to gather our funds and gradually lean back into the housing market.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/23/real_estate/existing_home_sales/index.htm?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123781706899814483.html

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2009/3/23/existinghome_sales_increase_in_february.htm

Walking Away From a Mortgage

By Andrew Cho



A 60 minutes clip advising consumers to be wary of mortgages that simply do not make any sense.

Real Estate vs Stocks

By: Alcides Hoy Jr.

Round 1
Performance
Real estate has packed quite a punch of late, appreciating 12.4% annually between 2001 and 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. Home Price index. That clobbered stock prices, which gained only 4.3% a year as measured by the S&P 500.
But over the long run stocks win easily. A new study by Jack Clark Francis, a finance and economics professor at Baruch College in New York City, and Yale's Roger G. Ibbotson compared the annual returns of real estate from 1978 to 2004 compared with those of 15 different "paper" investments, including stocks, bonds, commodities futures, mortgage securities and real estate investment trusts (REITs).
The results? Housing delivered a solid but unimpressive annualized return of 8.6%. Commercial property did better at 9.5%. The S&P, however, delivered a crushing 13.4%.
Other studies argue that real estate's returns are much worse. Yale finance and economics professor Robert Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, who looked back to 1890, contends that only twice has real estate produced truly outstanding returns: after World War II, when returning troops were starting their families, and from 1998 to 2005, a period he thinks is a bubble.
Housing's rate of return, he argues, has to trend back to the mean of about 3% a year - barely above the inflation rate. If that's starting to happen now, he says, we could be facing many years of losses.

Click to Read More

Buyers Nesting instead of flipping

Posted by Yen Ho
Written by Alan Heavens

The real estate market means people are thinking of homes more as shelter than as a commodity to resell as quickly as possible, according to TV home-repair guru Ty Pennington.

"Instead of buying a house and flipping it as fast as you can, people expect to stay for a while, which means the art of nesting is back," said Pennington, host of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and formerly one of the carpenters on TLC's "Trading Spaces."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012904580.html

Housing Stimulus Bill

By Jin Zheng

The housing stimulus bill has been approved by the House of Representatives and is now being decided on by the Senate. Among the things to be discussed by senators from both parties will be how to encourage home sales and help home owners who are on the verge of losing their homes. As a result, there will be a lot of things that needs to be discussed in order for the bill to be passed.

One of the idea is that Republicans want to offer a 30 year fix rate mortgage at 4% for a limited period of time and only individuals with good credit is able to get this loan; this will be government backed as the government will be making up the difference in the rates. This will fix banks by fixing consumers but it will be very expensive, especially if the mortgage rates increases.

Second idea is expanding the home buyer credit. Currently, there is a temporary $7,500 first time home buyers credit proposed in the bill but Senator Kent Conrad, who is Senate Budget Committee Chairman, wants to expand it to make it apply to all housing purchases. In addition, it is desired that the credit is increased to $15,000.

Another idea would be to allow foreclosures to be postponed for 90 days. This is to allow individuals who are about to lose their homes to keep their homes for an additional three months. As a result, the home owners can find a way to keep their homes by working with their mortgage providers. If this bill does get passed, home owners can see lower mortgage rates and provisions to help them keep their homes. Home buyers, on the other hand, can receive tax credits.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/01/news/economy/Senate_stimulus_housing/index.htm?postversion=2009020210

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/29/real_estate/tax_credit_near/index.htm?postversion=2009012917

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gFSu3GqniGVvNSQKACosXSPETSNwD963NO000