w*******e
发帖数: 53 | 1 这是San Francisco Chronicle 上关于湾区房市走势的最新分析文章，应该算比
较中立、中肯。
全国光房市就Wipe Out了 6 个Trillion的财富，Obama的1个Trillion的救市计划能够
带来通货膨胀？看来是庸人自忧了。
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/26/MNR
--------------------
Signs of more trouble ahead for housing market
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Print E-mail
deliciousdel.icio.us
diggDigg
technoratiTechnorati
redditReddit
facebookFacebook slashdotSlashdot
farkFark
newsvineNewsvine
googleGoogle Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Share Comments (139)
Georgia (default)
Verdana
Times New Roman
Arial
Font | Size:
Warren Buffett and Alan Greenspan say the housing market is near bottom.
Peppy real estate agents and gloomy stock-market traders alike eagerly
embrace that supposition. Wall Street is so hungry for good news that stocks
rallied at the barest hint of upbeat indicators several times this month.
Images
Underwater by $200,000 in Richmond, Matt Bording and wife... View More
Images
Video
View Larger Size
More Business
* MGA asks appeals court to halt transfer of Bratz 05.26.09
* Cowboys, veteran LB Ellis likely headed for split 05.26.09
* Oil above $62 amid rising US consumer confidence 05.26.09
* MGA asks appeals court to halt transfer of Bratz 05.26.09
But an array of serious pending issues undercuts the turnaround theorists.
To be sure, an end to the precipitous collapse that triggered a foreclosure
avalanche and wiped out more than $6 trillion of home equity nationwide, not
to mention setting off a worldwide economic collapse, would be something to
celebrate. And several recent market barometers - diminishing inventory,
increasing buyer competition, slowing price depreciation, rising builder
confidence - lend credence to the idea that real estate could soon rebound.
A healthy housing market has a decent balance between supply and demand.
While at a quick glance those components appear to be stabilizing, on closer
look there are numerous factors that are likely to weaken demand and deluge
the market with supply in coming months.
On the demand side, the surge in joblessness, still-high home prices, the
credit crunch and a dearth of move-up buyers cut into the pool of potential
home buyers.
On the supply side, an assortment of factors seems poised to trigger new
waves of foreclosures that will continue to bloat inventory. They include
the expiration of foreclosure moratoriums, more underwater "walk-away"
homeowners, pending recasts of option ARM loans, rising delinquencies in
prime and Alt-A loans, and soft sales of high-end homes.
Here is a rundown of key problems that could continue to undercut real
estate.
Demand still softens
-- Rising unemployment. It doesn't take an economist to realize people will
not buy homes if they're worried they might lose their jobs.
"Employment is crucially important," said Peter Morici, a professor at the
University of Maryland business school. "We lost more than 600,000 private-
sector jobs last month. That means the housing market is not going to turn
up yet for a while."
Unemployment also will spur supply. While the first wave of foreclosed-upon
homeowners comprised people who could not afford their homes from the get-go
, as more people lose their jobs, they are likely to lose their homes
because they no longer have enough income to make the payments.
-- No "move-up" buyers. In a normal real estate market, about 80 percent of
buyers are "moving up" or "moving across" - people who sell one home before
buying another, said Mark Hanson, principal of Walnut Creek's the Field
Check Group, a mortgage consultant. Remaining purchasers are split between
first-time buyers and investors.
In today's market, about half of buyers are first-timers and a third are
investors, leaving just 15 percent of what he calls "organic" buyers. Those
first-timers and investors all troll for bargain-basement foreclosures -
leaving few buyers who are interested in the homes being sold by "Ma and Pa
Homeowner." That, in turn, leaves Ma and Pa unable to move up to a nicer
home. "The organic seller is left out in the cold," he said.
It also could impact supply down the road, when all those pent-up sellers
finally decide to put their homes on the market.
-- Tight credit. Even people who do want to buy a home can't necessarily
find someone willing to give them a mortgage. The standards of 20 percent
down payment; solid, provable income; and good credit are back in force.
While that more-stringent underwriting represents a return to classic values
that should avoid future delinquencies, it leaves quite a few potential
borrowers out in the cold. Most notably, self-employed workers - even ones
with high income, such as doctors - are finding a less-cordial reception
from lenders.
-- Homes still overpriced. Home values have plunged nationwide. The
authoritative Case-Shiller index shows prices nationwide at 158, down from a
spring 2006 peak of 226. (That compares to a base value of 100 in January
2000.)
So that means homes are now affordable, right? Not so, say many analysts who
believe prices are still wildly inflated compared to historic appreciation
rates. From 1950 to 2000, home prices grew 4.4 percent a year, modestly
outpacing inflation, said Andrew Schiff, a spokesman for Euro Pacific
Capital in Connecticut. Following that metric, the Case-Shiller index should
be at 132. "We're still way above where we should be in a normal market,"
he said.
Supply likely to surge
-- Foreclosure moratoriums end. Major lenders temporarily halted
foreclosures late last year and early this year in anticipation of President
Obama's housing rescue plan. In addition, California enacted a new law this
fall that slowed down foreclosures. That means the foreclosure rate was
artificially depressed over the past several months. The moratoriums have
now expired.
The net result is likely to be fresh batches of foreclosures from all those
deferred troubled loans. California statistics illustrate the problem.
According to research firm MDA DataQuick, mortgage default notices - the
first step in the foreclosure process - hit record highs in the first
quarter, implying that, within months, foreclosures will resurge.
-- Shadow inventory. Banks appear to be sitting on a vast inventory of homes
that they have repossessed but not yet listed for sale. As previously
reported in The Chronicle, this shadow foreclosure inventory could number in
the hundreds of thousands nationwide. In addition, observers say banks
appear to be deliberately delaying foreclosures, for example, not yet
sending notices of default to homeowners who are months behind on their
mortgages. All those properties eventually will have to hit the market, and,
like all foreclosures, are likely to sell at cut-rate prices, driving down
home values.
-- Walk-away underwater homeowners. The number of people who owe more than
their home is worth continues to rise. Almost 22 percent of all mortgage
holders were underwater by March, according to real estate site Zillow.com.
That's spurring a phenomenon of "walk-away" homeowners - people who choose
foreclosure because they don't want to pay off an upside-down asset.
Matt Bording and Mangala Abeysinghe are an example. They have poured love
and energy into their three-bedroom Richmond home; the garden alone is a
work of art. Bording has a steady job as an ICU nurse, Abeysinghe, a nurse
in her native Sri Lanka, should readily find work once she passes the U.S.
licensing exam. They made a down payment and can afford their monthly
payments.
On paper, they sound like ideal borrowers. But as their home value plummeted
, leaving them underwater by more than $200,000, they decided to walk away.
They stopped paying their mortgage in October, and are still living in the
home, although the lender sold it at a foreclosure auction last week.
Bording described the decision as "a bit of brinkmanship and bravado, along
with fear of being financially trapped. I'm wondering about the possibility
of many more prime borrowers doing the same thing, causing some kind of
ripple in the economy."
-- Loan modification shortfalls. Modifying borrower's mortgages to make them
more affordable is a cornerstone of foreclosure prevention. But to date,
most such efforts have simply deferred foreclosure, rather than providing a
permanent fix. An authoritative study by the Comptroller of the Currency
found that more than half of modified loans end up delinquent again within
months. However, the study was done before the Obama administration's
mortgage mod plan came into play. The jury is still out on how effective it
will be at preventing foreclosures.
-- Option ARM, Alt-A time bombs. Two categories of loans used for higher-end
homes are emerging as the next trouble spots, as foreclosure contagion
spreads beyond subprime. Delinquencies are rising for Alt-A loans given to
people with good credit who could not document their income. Meanwhile,
millions of option ARMs, or adjustable rate mortgages in which borrowers can
choose to start off making minimum payments that don't even cover the
interest, are expected to start resetting next summer. At reset, borrowers
suddenly must make sharply higher payments, which can trigger foreclosures.
The underwater issue comes into play here, too: People who owe more than
their home is worth find the door slammed shut on refinancing their way out
of trouble.
"Option ARM and Alt-A products will be the next big wave of foreclosures,"
said Jeffrey Taylor, a forensic accountant with Digital Risk LLC, which
provides risk mitigation services for financial firms. "Many of those (
borrowers) reached a little further than they should have. With the economy
deteriorating, will those people be able to afford those houses?"
-- High end taking a hit. Until recently, most of the market activity and
price drops have been among lower-cost homes. Homes under $350,000 have had
the most severe price drops, while those above $750,000 have remained
relatively stable. That appears to be changing, as foreclosure woes spread
to the upper end. The difficulty of getting "jumbo" loans to buy pricey
houses has exacerbated the situation to the point where unsold inventories
of high-end homes are swelling.
"The mid- to upper-end housing market is sitting on the exact precipice that
the lower-end market was sitting on in early 2008," Hanson said.
E-mail Carolyn Said at c***[email protected].
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle | T******g
发帖数: 21328 | | mv
发帖数: 35 | 3 各方面的消息都说REO会在近期增多，因为最近几个月的die down是银行和政府控制所
造成的假象。但是从最近的实战经验看，仿佛房市是在升温，不是在降温。难道是山雨
欲来风满楼？回光返照？ |
|
