The Blog of Author Mark MacKenzie: It's The Housing Market, Stupid!

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Real Estate Broker/Owner
RECENT BLOG POSTS
The FHA announced today that the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit can now be received by the buyer at the closing table in the form of a loan so that they can use the credit to pay for some of their closing costs or decorating expenses. This $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit/loan, ca...
05/29/2009
The Census Bureau is reporting that new home sales in April rose 0.3% from last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000, but are still down -34% from last year. While the new home market remains over shadowed by the existing home sales market in terms of sales and supply volume, it ...
05/29/2009
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association and their weekly mortgage application index, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage jumped from 4.69% last week to 4.81% this week, a new 9-week high. While this modest rise in mortgage rates off of their recent historic lows will negatively impact housing a...
05/28/2009
According to the NAR, home value declines in April fell by -15.4% when compared to last year.  The -15.4% decline is just off the record decline that was set in February of 2009 at -15.5%.  The latest data is yet another sign that not only is the housing market not at a bottom, but home values de...
05/28/2009
The NAR announced their April existing home sales data yesterday which showed that while existing home sales were up 2.9% from last month, the supply of homes were up even more by 8.8% to 3.968 million. The result of this disproportionate change between the supply and demand was that the month's ...
05/28/2009
Despite historically low mortgage rates, a first time home buyer tax credit, record housing affordability, and a significant but albeit skeptical surge in consumer confidence (if consumer confidence is so high, why aren't more people applying to purchase a home?) yesterday, the mortgage purchase ...
05/27/2009
Consumer confidence jumped from 40.8 in April to 54.9 in May, the largest one-month jump since April of 2003, according to Reuters. In light of May's surge in consumer confidence as well as a deteriorating job market and housing market, it begs the question, is the tail wagging? What I mean by th...
05/26/2009
According to Case-Shiller, home prices dropped -19.1% in the first quarter and are now down -32.2% since peaking in the second quarter of 2006. While we can debate the accuracy in terms of the percentage changewith the Case-Shiller index as there are a couple of other indexes that track home valu...
05/26/2009
According to the National Association of REALTORS, housing affordability fell for the second straight month to 166.7 in March due to the median home value rising for the second straight month. Housing affordability, much like housing inventory or the month's supply of housing, is best understood ...
05/23/2009
Not only did housing starts set a new record low (again) this month, but permits did too.  Housing permits dropped -3.3% month over month and -50.2% year over year to a seasonally adjusted rate of 494,000. This is further evidence that the housing market has not yet cratered into a "bottom" as Wa...
05/23/2009
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Mark MacKenzie

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